Square Dance

I recently debriefed with a fellow (teacher I support) about two activities focusing on Squares, Square Roots, and Irrational numbers. Let's build number sense. Here are the goods:

• Clothesline activity using these cards
• Square Dance desmos activity

She ran both activities with students, starting with the Clothesline activity. She used the cards linked above for students to first place the visual representations on the number line. It looked something like this:

Followed by:

Students then completed the first 7 screens in the Desmos Square Dance activity. Screen 6 includes a validator when done correctly, compliments of Nathan Kraft.

*Please note that part 1 of the activity uses only whole numbers as rational numbers. I highly recommend using the activity as a launching point for students to know that perfect squares include other rational numbers like fractions and decimals. 

Back to Clothesline:

This week she will use the next set of cards for irrational numbers. It might look something like this on the number line:

Followed by:

Back to Square Dance 

Students can build better conceptual understanding of irrational numbers in the desmos activity. Also look for teachable moments throughout the activity. 

*Please note screens 11 & 15 include non-repeating and non-terminating decimal notations. 

Screen 11

Screen 15

Just like Screen 6, Kraft-y validators are included on screens 12 & 16.

Two closing thoughts:

1) My fellow was so happy to use these conceptual representations with clothesline and desmos. 

2) She hasn't seen students making mistakes like she has in the past. Here's an example (crossed out) of a common mistake she has seen regularly in the past.

If you have time, head over to this post and have your students play War with the Rational-Irrational cards provided.

Dance,

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Clothesline Cards Hit the Floor

A colleague and I stumbled upon an opportunity to strengthen number sense with students using a double clothesline. The video says it all:

 *For more fun with clothesline math, go to Chris Shore's designated site: clotheslinemath.com

Floor,
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My Tech Tools [Kahoot!]

Here is a tool that does not meet my criteria:
Kahoot!
• Capture
Anyone can log in. There's no Google login like Pear Deck, Desmos, or Google Forms. The teacher must rely on students honorably entering their name. There are four design features that could possibly hinder the accuracy at which a teacher is able to capture student thinking:

• multiple choice
• timed questions
• points driven
• selecting answers in the form of different colored shapes

Multiple choice
Multiple choice will never 100% accurately capture what a student is thinking because the student could get it correct by guessing or for the wrong reason. This can be referred to as false-positives.

Timed questions
By default, questions are timed in order to fall in line with the gaming feel of Kahoot! Therefore, students with the best recall will typically score higher. This option can be turned off. You have 15 seconds. HURRY!!!!!!
Points driven
Kahoot! could be considered a gamified tool that checks for understanding. One component of games could be points. Kahoot! rewards students who answer accurately and more quickly than their peers with more points. There's a leaderboard.

• Different colored backgrounds and shapes as answers
This feature requires additional decoding by a student who might also struggle with the math being questioned. Not being a quick processor, I have struggled with this feature a handful of times. I think the use of different colors is a great design feature. I would suggest Kahoot! ditch the white polygons or give the teacher the option to turn them off.

• Sort
There is no real-time sorting of student thinking. If a teacher would like to see how specific students answered questions, they have to wait until the session is finished and look at the data on a spreadsheet. Granted, this data is better than nothing. After having teacher dashboards available in other tech tools like Pear Deck and Desmos, I need the data NOW! Again, after the students go home is better than nothing. Because answers are multiple choice, the results from a question are displayed as bar graphs. Unfortunately, the teacher cannot click on a bar graph to see which students picked that answer.

• Assess
Multiple choice questions can always present a teacher with false positives as I mentioned above. The bar graph could be generally informative to me as a teacher. I do appreciate the option that a teacher could export the results of the game after the session has ended. This could help inform their instruction for the next day if they decide to use Kahoot! as an exit slip.

• Discuss
After students have answered a question and the bar graphs are displayed, the teacher does have the option to click on the image and discuss the mathematics. However, I wouldn't feel that well informed as to what students were thinking or the reasoning behind their choices, especially if they were being timed and the timer caused them to quickly guess.

Kahoot! conclusion:
I can't help but feel like a game-show host when I've run Kahoot sessions. No thanks. I'm a teacher, not a game-show host. You might be wondering why I don't have a wish list for Kahoot! I have found other tools that can do the same exact thing without students being timed, earning points, or having to additionally process colors and shapes when answering. If you're a fan of Kahoot!, then I welcome arguments that might convince me to reconsider the tool. However, if you'd like to present arguments, I request you consider the tech tool Quizalize. It has a gaming feel to it, but just might be more informative to you, the teacher.

Learn more about Kahoot! here.
Learn more about Quizalize here.

More from the My Tech Tools Series:

• My Criteria
• Pear Deck
• Desmos
• Google Forms

Kahoot,

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