The internet is a wonderful place to find interesting additions to your math program. I’ve gone through the math sites on my website for teachers, cyberbali.com, and picked my five favorite sites. I used three of these sites regularly when I was a math teacher. The other two sites are ones that I wasn’t aware of during my teaching days. One of the particularly great things about these sites is that they allow students to work on problem areas at their own pace. They put the student in control of what they learn and when they learn. And that should be one of our goals as teachers.
PatrickJMT
Patrick JMT: Just Math Tutorials is an incredible website for teachers and students. This site has been set up by Patrick JMT who is a math teacher. Just Math Tutorials has free math videos on algebra, trigonometry, calculus, probabilities and statistics, differential equations, linear algebra and more. Patrick has created his own short videos that show a piece of paper with a few sample problems along with Patrick’s hand and pen working out the problem. The written working out of the problems is accompanied by Patrick’s clear, easily understandable explanations of what he is doing. So, for example, his lesson on converting between scientific and decimal notation runs just over 11 minutes, and he presents the lesson slowly and succinctly.
Now as a teacher, I might want to show students my own approach (which is just like Patrick’s by the way) and have the students do some problems in class. Then when they work on their homework, if they have difficulties solving the problems, they can go online and watch Patrick’s video to remind them of the proper conversion process. Or, I could, if I was feeling a bit lazy for the day, or I had a sub coming in to cover my classes, just put the videos up on the LCD and go over them with the students. Or, this could be used for distance education. Or, the videos could be used as a model for students to make their own math videos. There are so many cool ways to use this site. Patrick JMT is one of those sites that I wish had been available to me when I was teaching math.
AAA Math
The AAA Math website has math lessons for students from Kindergarten through Grade 8. Lessons are arranged by subject and grade level so the site is easy to use. Let’s say, for instance, that I’m teaching 8th Grade. I can click on the 8th Grade level button, and I will be taken to a page with topics for Eighth Grade. Topics include: comparing and ordering numbers, measurement, positive and negative integers, scientific notation, geometric properties and more. Let’s say that I want to work on consumer math, I click on that link and am taken down the page to some specific lessons. In this case there are 14 lessons including discount, sales tax and estimating tips (for those of you who really fret about this). So, I click on the link in order work on estimating tips with my students. A page opens up with a problem and the procedure for answering the question. Below that is a practice section where students can try either one problem or a series of problems. They calculate their answer, enter it and click check. They are told that they have a correct or incorrect answer. If the answer is incorrect, they are given the correct answer. Students can work on an unlimited number of practice problems.
This site is a great resource that can be used with the whole class on an LCD projector, in a computer lab with each student working individually, or as homework. Similar to the PatrickJMT website, this is an excellent resource for those days when you have a substitute teacher and want something that she can do easily that will keep the students actively involved in the lesson. AAA Math is also a good resource for homeschooling. You can save the results of your work and print them, or you can email them to your teacher.
Get The Math
For you math teachers, this will be a commonly heard refrain, “Will I ever use this in real life?” Well, Get the Math is a great math site that answers that question. And, it answers it in an engaging way with videos and real life situations so that students can see just how much math is a part of the everyday world that they will meet as adults. This site uses algebra problems for middle school and high school students.
Get the Math works like Donald Trump’s Apprentice show. Students are given a problem to solve and then they have to figure out how to do it. The challenges are designed to interest young people: a fashion challenge, a video game development challenge and a music challenge. Students who are viewing the site try to meet the challenge using the interactive tools on the site. After that they can go back to the video to see how the teams online met the challenge. Included on the site are videos about the teams, the challenges, a 30-minute training video for teachers that shows them how to use the site with their students, complete lesson plans with handouts. Each challenge has several additional challenges that students can try to fully develop their problem solving skills. This is another website that I wish I had known about when I was teaching math.
Cool Math 4 Kids
Cool Math 4 Kids is a site that I often used when I was teaching math and computer classes. It’s filled with fun math-related online games, lesson for arithmetic through precalculus, flash cards, a parents section with tips and resources, a teacher section with ideas and resources, and just a lot of cool stuff. Game types are strategy, skill, numbers, shapes/colors, pictures, logic, memory, board and word. There’s an online math dictionary, properties and formulas, a geometry and trigonometry reference area, and resources for teachers taking online professional development courses. There’s just so much here that a teacher needs to specifically direct students to what she wants them to use. That means that it’s important to get to know the site, play the games, try the lessons and make yourself an expert on what the site has to offer; then send your students there and get them started developing and refining their math skills while having some fun along the way.
Figure This: Math Challenges for Families
Figure This: Math Challenges for Families is a site for families with middle school students that was funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Education and developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Widmeyer Communications and the Learning First Alliance.
The site presents students with mathematical challenges that they can do with the help of their families. Each challenge has a description of the math used in the problem, a note that tells about how math is used in the real world, a hint to get the student started, the complete solution, related problems that come with answers, a Try This section, math fun facts, questions to think about and resources.
The challenges can be done on the website or they can be downloaded in PDF. Cartoon characters present the challenges. These problems show how math is used in real life. There are 80 challenges for students and their parents to work on. Each challenge has a hint, then a getting started section that shows families how to begin solving the challenge if they haven’t been able to proceed successfully using the hint. After finishing each challenge there are additional challenges of the same type. The website is bilingual in Spanish and English.
Figure This! has a Teacher Corner with materials for teachers to use as PDF files. These include ideas for teachers to use, a set of math standards that shows how Figure This! supports the standards, slides from a power point presentation on Figure This! and family handout materials such as sample challenges, a letter to the family and more. The Family Corner has resources for parents that want to get involved in their children’s math education.
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