As I was sitting there, doing some math on KHAN for fun, and listening to the Blackhawks, i had just one of those moments. I clicked on "ordering fractions" and waited for the problem to load. It appeared and it read like this:
Did you know: Only female mosquitos suck blood.
Order the following fractions:
Ok...I wont give you the fractions, but a few things ran through my mind when I read the problem. The only reason I read the first sentence, was because I thought it had something to do with the problem. Now, as I read the "Did you know" phrase, I thought about how I did know that, however it is still an interesting fact that people might not know. I didn't think twice and went on to read the rest of the problem. When I read, "Order the following fractions," I went to begin the problem and then realized, that the fact about mosquitos had nothing to do with actually solving the problem. Then it struck me, that even though I didn't need the information, it was still interesting, and sort of got the wheels turning as I move on to the math problem. It lit a light in my thinking, almost like a very quick warmup before starting to order the fractions. I wonder if this would interest my students. Give them interesting facts, see if it gets the thinking gears going, and can improve their interest and quality of work in math.
Did you know: Only female mosquitos suck blood.
Order the following fractions:
Ok...I wont give you the fractions, but a few things ran through my mind when I read the problem. The only reason I read the first sentence, was because I thought it had something to do with the problem. Now, as I read the "Did you know" phrase, I thought about how I did know that, however it is still an interesting fact that people might not know. I didn't think twice and went on to read the rest of the problem. When I read, "Order the following fractions," I went to begin the problem and then realized, that the fact about mosquitos had nothing to do with actually solving the problem. Then it struck me, that even though I didn't need the information, it was still interesting, and sort of got the wheels turning as I move on to the math problem. It lit a light in my thinking, almost like a very quick warmup before starting to order the fractions. I wonder if this would interest my students. Give them interesting facts, see if it gets the thinking gears going, and can improve their interest and quality of work in math.
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