Great Classroom Action

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Mitzi Hasegawa links up a clever game called Entrapment that helps student understand these reflections, translations, and rotations that (I’m told) now constitute the entirety of K-12 mathematics:

One table debated the transformation highlighted in today’s picture. Is the figure on the grid a reflection of the figure or a rotation?

Federico Chialvo asks his students “How safe is a Tesla?

Jonathan Claydon poses the deceptively simple challenge to spin a measuring tape handle at exactly one mile per hour:

Most students experience miles per hour in a car. The challenge would imply “I should spin pretty slow.” Yet, the handle isn’t very long. And there’s the curiosity. What does 1 mph look like at this small scale? So they spun.

Mary Bourassa repurposes a classic party game for the sake of learning features of quadratic equations:

They would ask “Is my h value positive?” but then either interpret the answer incorrectly or not be sure whether the person they had asked truly understood what a positive h value meant. They all figured out their equations and had fun doing so. And they want to play again next week when the whole class is there. I’ll be happy to oblige.

About 
I'm Dan and this is my blog. I'm a former high school math teacher and current head of teaching at Desmos. He / him. More here.