Mathematics Resources

I have been researching different Mathematics resources and found some great resources that I wanted to share. At Illustrative Mathematics you can find PDF illustrations, drop down/ color coded illustrations and also videos of standards K-12. I think that the best part is the example problems, especially as I am a non-math teacher, it is important for me to get a chance to see how the math standards are layered.

Khan Academy has changed and developed a lot over the past few years. So, instead of just thinking, "oh, yeah... I've heard of Khan Academy." I'd suggest giving it another try. You can now create your own learning account or coach students through a program and see how they are working through their problems and moving from level to level. The coaching aspect that Khan Academy has now is much more exciting than just the videos. So, you have to go back and revisit Khan Academy... you can teach yourself coding, all levels of mathematics, chemistry, biology, organic chemistry even world history and finance! It is definitely a way that you can personalize your teaching/ learning for students as you can see where the student is struggling or advancing.

Desmos is another web app that I think has developed a lot as well. Make your graphs dynamic with interactive sliders, data tables and even challenge your students to replicate or create their own student art! You can do a lot with graphing calculators, plat circles and quadratic formulas, but how do you have them explain what they just did? Here's how: 1) Have students install Chrome Extension "Awesome Screenshot" to take a screen shot of their graphing, 2) Students can save the screenshot on their Google Drive, 3) Import the image they took of their drawing on a Google Doc, and 4) Have students explain on the doc the steps that it took for each of them to work through their problem and solve it with the graph. Students can go back to their Desmos problems to change them if they are incorrect, but it is a good way to have them do the explanation of their work and also integrate writing into the classroom.

Geogebra and it's supplementary video site, Geogebratube, are both great resources. Geogrebra is a construction piece to create three-dimensional or plane shapes. Geogebratube has tutorial videos that could be used just to be a bell-ringer activity, flipped classroom activity or even more!

Socrative is something I have used before, but I recently read a new way to use it in your classroom. First off, create your Socrative account and start creating your quizzes. The quizzes are self-graded and you can use this with iPads or Chromebooks. I have read some teachers use Socrative and have students log in with their device, choose about 5 different problems and have students just answer the problems with their final answer. Socrative self-grades and then you have just a good "check" on how students are progressing. I could see this being used easily for vocab quizzes, quick "check" for reading quizzes or even surveys. It will work well for exit tickets or there is even a feature for "space rocket races" where you could project the results on the board as the students are randomly put in groups and race to the finish.

Here are just a few ideas... for the math classroom. Hope you get a chance to try them out!