Using Ms. Pac-Man to Introduce TranslationsIn the following lesson, I was teaching students about properties of translations in the coordinate plane. I started the lesson by having students watch a youtube video in which Ms. Pac-Man moves around a game board only with translations (she does not change her orientation at all). We watched the video multiple times and then the students helped me recreate the movements on the board. The goal was to have students talking about translations in their own language before introducing the concept. In the rest of the lesson, students used patty paper to discover how translating an preimage in the coordinate plane changed the coordinates of the image.
I used the video because I thought it would be a fun and engaging way to start the lesson. While not everyone plays Ms. Pac-Man as much as they used to, the students could still understand the connection. I also liked that the video encouraged them to use their own language for describing translations and was a great segue into introducing the concept. This evidence shows my ability to implement media into a lesson and relate it to the mathematical content I am teaching. It also shows that I am able to use media in an engaging way to enhance my lesson plans. Later on in this same week, I showed students another video, very similar to the first in which Ms. Pac-Man was both translating and reflecting. I then had them work on a project in which they were writing their own transformation to move Ms. Pac-Man around the game board to earn points. It was a fun and engaging way to connect the lessons together so that students understood how the concepts were related. |
Below is the lesson plan that followed later in the week, that combined translations and reflections using similar media.
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Dr. Seuss and FunctionsIn the following lesson, I was teaching students about relations and how to determine whether a relation was a function. I used a book by Dr. Seuss, called "The Sneetches.” In the story, there are two types of sneetches, star-belly sneetches and plain-belly sneetches. There is a rift between the two groups and the plain-belly sneetches use a machine to become star-belly sneetches in hopes of acceptance. Then, the star-belly sneetches use a different machine to remove their stars so that they will still stand out. By the end of the story, the sneetches are all mixed up and do not remember who the plain-belly and star-belly sneetches were. They are able to live peacefully together and accept their differences.
In the lesson, I use the story as a starting point for a discussion about machines, input and output, and domain and range. I then have the students create their own machines and share them with the class. This allows me to use the students’ ideas to show various representations of relations, such as tables, mappings, or graphs. My goal in this lesson was to guide student discussion and help the class develop their own definitions of relations and functions, using their own machines as the examples for each. This evidence further shows my ability to implement various media resources in my classroom. I think this lesson is a great example of the creativity I put into my lessons and the value I place on student generated ideas. Although I did not have an opportunity to use this lesson in class, I hope to do so in the future and see what machines my students will come up with! |