Blog #4: My Favorite Activities So Far...

This first term of my second year of teaching has gone pretty well.  I feel a lot more confident this year than I had last year.  I think this is mostly because I have a year of experience under my belt.

As a team building ice breaker I had my students do the “Tower Activity” like we had done this summer.  To minimize cost and the possible mess, I had them use only 10 chopsticks that were bundled together by a rubber band and a yard of tape.  The only instructions my co teacher and I gave them were to create the tallest freestanding tower with the materials provided given twenty minutes.  My students quickly got to work and many groups started to ask important question about their materials.  They wanted to know whether they could use the rubber band and the paper that the chopsticks are in.  I would simply answer by saying, “You can only use the materials given to you.”  This led them to think about what that means in the sense of what are their materials and how to use them effectively.  There were several groups that did not use their tape wisely and ended up running out of tape leaving them unable to complete their tower.  There were other groups how created their towers in a way I had never seen before!  Their creative process was very interesting to my co-teacher and I and we really enjoyed it as well as our students.  It was interesting to watch their process and discuss the trails and errors they encountered.  This also helped us to see which students worked well with each other and where their might be issues.  This was the first time I had ever done this activity in my classes and I think it will be an activity I will use every year!

We also recently did an activity with our student involving functions where we looked up the cost of tuition per credit for the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  I showed them what I had paid for a semester during my undergraduate degree and we calculated the fees that were charged and what most of them were such as the UPASS and the Student Athletic Fee.  Then they made a function for a semester per credit of in-state, out-of-state and the WUE program (150% of the in-state tuition) cost with fees.  They were shocked at the cost overall and really surprised with the cost of out-of-state tuition for a full time student.  They asked, “Why would anyone come here for college with that cost?”  I asked them to write where they wanted to go to college and why on their reflections.  It was really interesting to see what colleges my students wanted to go to and why.  For my own reflection, I wish I had added more colleges such as community colleges or colleges from other states.

We also did an activity using a watt meter to help our students understand independent and dependent variables through cause and effect.  One of the other algebra I teachers told me about this activity and which science teachers had the watt meters that I could borrow.  We had our students work in groups to find the wattage of different items in our classroom.  Students found the wattage of different fans, a microwave, a TV, a Promethean Board, an iphone charger, a Samsung charger, a printer, a refrigerator, an XBOX 360 (I brought in my fiancée’s) and a portable AC unit (since we had just got them).  They did several trails with different items such as a fan plugged in but not on, on low speed, medium speed and high speed.  I don’t have the exact numbers with me, (I’m on Maui for Fall break) but I believe they found that an XBOX 360 plugged in but not on would cost approximately $2.00 a month.  That would add up to about $24.00 a year if the XBOX was plugged in and never turned on.  I told them they owe their parents some money!  I feel that this activity gave them a better understanding of how to determine an independent variable from a dependent variable by being able to show them how the cost depends upon the wattage of an item.  Also they learned what wattage is and how it relates to cost.  They also reflected on how they can reduce their energy usage by unplugging items when they are not in use.