Category: Math
5 Tech Tools for Math Class
I’ve updated Ask a Tech Teacher’s list of ten math tools we posted in 2016 to be shorter and with a new option. The new one is larger and in the #1 position. I think this will better reflect what’s going on today in our classrooms:
It can be difficult to teach math, but with the proper tools, it can often be made easier. This article will discuss some of the best tools for tutoring math online, and the way they can help teachers to improve their student’s skills. The 5 best tools for tutoring maths online are:
1. ByteLearn.com – Digital math teaching assistant for teachers
ByteLearn is a platform that helps teachers spend less time preparing materials and still gives each student individualised training. Using ByteLearn, teachers can track students’ development, keep tabs on their performance, and adjust the curriculum to suit each student’s needs. With just one click, teachers may produce 7th Grade Math worksheets like Combining Like Terms, Grade 7 Math quizzes like Distributive Property , Seventh Grade Math unit tests, and 7 Grade Math Practice Questions on Distributive Property etc.
Give ByteLearn a try in your classroom today!
Pricing: Free for teachers and students
100s of Websites on STEM-STEAM
After you’ve checked out our favorite STEAM resources, here are some of those that teachers use to teach STEM and STEAM:
Science
Technology
Engineering
Art
Math
National STEM/STEAM Day Nov. 8th
National STEM Day is November 8, 2022, the unofficial holiday that celebrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education throughout the United States. Many add ‘art’ to the celebration for the acronym, STEAM. Here are some great ideas that remind your students of the excitement that is these core subjects:
Ten Ways to Celebrate National STEM Day with NASA
National STEM Day focuses on helping students advance in STEM fields, a priority of NASA as we continue to push the boundaries of exploration and soar into the future. In celebration of National STEM Day, we challenge you to engage and inspire the Artemis generation as we go forward to the Moon by 2024 and continue to innovate in the areas of Earth science and aeronautics. To help you join in on the festivities, here are 10 ways you can celebrate National STEM Day with us.
49 STEM Activities for Students
On November 8th, we will celebrate National STEM Day to get kids excited about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Together the STEM subjects represent some of the fastest-growing and most in-demand fields in the United States.
While STEM topics seem a natural fit in high schools and post-secondary curriculum, education experts are promoting a focus on STEM subjects for younger and younger children.
12 Projects for your STEAM program
Twelve favorite STEAM projects where artistic thinking becomes the engine for unpacking solutions.
Activities from Engineering for Kids
National STEM/STEAM Day is dedicated to all things science, technology, engineering, art, and math. STEM (and STEAM) represents some of the fastest-growing and in-demand fields in the world today and Engineering For Kids is passionate about inspiring the next generation of engineers, artists, and innovators.
Bring Weather into Your Lesson Plan with Earth Networks and WeatherSTEM
One of the hottest topics in schools and an area of greatest need is STEM resources. Earth Networks has developed creative and compelling STEM curricula on a variety of weather topics. Any school with a weather unit or an onsite weather station will appreciate this site. I asked them to drop in and explain their education programs to the AATT community:
5 Ways to Celebrate National STEM/STEAM Day
National STEM/STEAM Day is an opportunity to focus on helping kids advance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Creating understanding around STEM and STEAM is a big topic of conversation today. Statistics show few American students pursue expertise in STEM fields—and we have an inadequate pipeline of teachers skilled in those subjects. On the flipside of that the need for STEM oriented job skills are skyrocketing.
This STEM bundle includes four lesson plans: Engineering and Design, The Human Body, Keyboarding and the Scientific Method, and Robotics. All incorporate technology into authentic class activities such as bridge building, note-taking, and math. Each lesson plan includes an Essential Question and Big Idea, average time required to complete, suggested appropriate grade level, suggested teacher preparation, step-by-step directions (see preview for an example), assessment strategies, pedagogic background, samples, and images (where relevant).
How to Teach Venn Diagrams to Elementary School Students
Venn Diagrams are one of the most visual approaches to showing students the logical relationships between sets and connectivity of data. It uses overlapping circles to show the wholeness of data and then where they overlap other data sets. It’s easy to find templates for them–in MS Office, Google Apps, Canva, and more.
One of our Ask a Tech Teacher crew has organized the basics on how to teach Venn Diagrams to elementary-age students:
- What is a Venn Diagram
- How to make it digitally
- How to make it clear to elementary students (get crafty)
- How to use it to design games
How to Teach Venn Diagrams to Elementary School Students
Teaching children Venn diagrams is the beginning of teaching them how to sort and manage data, a skill that is becoming ever more useful in this technological era. However, finding a way to teach them that sticks is important – generic worksheets just won’t do! We’ve come up with a few ways you can teach elementary school students Venn diagrams that will make your lessons dynamic and fun.
https://pixabay.com/photos/school-draw-drawing-education-1974369/
What is a Venn Diagram?
It’s important to make sure you first understand what a Venn diagram is. A Venn diagram is a plot of overlapping circles that can display items via specific categories, as well as relationships. For example, you can have a Venn diagram representing blue eyes with one circle, and brown hair with another circle. Those with blue eyes but not brown hair will end up in only the segment for blue eyes; those with brown hair but not blue eyes will be placed only in the segment for brown hair. Those with blue eyes and brown hair will be placed in the segment created by the overlap of the two circles.
This is a fun concept to teach to children because it’s a visual method, so it isn’t difficult to find something both visual and interactive to make sure it’s memorable. Now for the methods!
Make it Digital
With technology becoming the main focus of life, especially for the younger generation, one of the best ways to connect and share ideas is through technology. This means using digital tools and accessing an online venn diagram can be incredibly helpful for many reasons. Firstly, it allows you to project what you’re describing on your smartboard or interactive whiteboard, allowing you to demonstrate to the class what you mean. It makes a good start!
Teaching Early Geometry Concepts
I spend a lot of time every week reading about current thinking in education. An article over at The Tech Edvocate caught my eye on early math. Math is a fundamental process in learning, not just adding and subtracting but to develops skill in problem solving and critical thinking. Scientists think that the sophistication of stone toolmaking almost a million years ago showed the symbolic and spatial thinking ability already present in our ancestors–a million years ago! To tap into that native ability with our youngest learners is not only important, but will make their education journey more enjoyable.
Here’s The Tech Edvocate’s article:
Teaching Early Geometry Concepts
Develop her visual memory of shapes by drawing a triangle, display it to her for about two seconds to three seconds, then ask her to describe it …
Check out these articles on Ask a Tech Teacher about teaching math:
Resources to Teach Taxes
As a passionate Economics major in college (which grew into an MBA), I find Econ at the root of much of the world around us. It starts with counting coins in first and second grade and grows up to a peek into NASDAQ and other adult subjects in middle school.
In the US, tax day is April 15th. Here are some good websites to discuss what is probably a popular topic in families:
Taxes
- BrainPOP | Taxes
- A history of US taxes
- Taxes–from Crash Course Economics
- Where does your money go? — lesson plan from PBS
- TurboTax Tax Calculator
After April 15th, there are great ways to teach about economics, financial literacy, and prepare students for managing their lives fiscally once they’re launched into the world:
Celebrate Pi Day and Maths Day
Two math celebrations are coming up on March 14th: Pi Day and World Maths Day
Pi Day
Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form.
Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant, holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.
Teaching Math
Every lower-grade teacher I know has huge numbers of students who love math but the older they get, the more those numbers shrink until by Middle School, they’re anemic, at best. The solution according to some students, is to instill the cerebral skills that support math prior to kindergarten. Here’s a great article from ASCD and EdSource on that subject:
Math in early childhood is key, studies show
Studies show that mathematical reasoning ability is crucial in early education, and when children understand math before entering elementary school, they have higher achievement on both reading and math tests later in their school years. Carolyn Pfister, an education administrator for the California State Board of Education, said many adults have math anxiety that has been passed to children.
For more on math, read these articles:
Need math resources? Have students try these
15+ Websites to Teach Financial Literacy
Math Scores Drop Again
Engaging children in math learning is a problem that continues relentlessly, year after year. We don’t seem to know how to fix the dropping math scores (and reading but that’s for another article). We can’t even blame it on COVID! If you’d like to understand this trend more, check out Education Week‘s article:
Young Adolescents’ Scores Trended to Historic Lows on National Tests. And That’s Before COVID Hit
Math scores for 9- and 13-year-old students on the “Nation’s Report Card” declined sharply from 2012 to 2020, and reading scores remained largely flat, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend study released today…
Ask a Tech Teacher has several articles in December that discuss this issue:
The Return to Rigorous Mathematics
One of my favorite PD sites, EdWeb, recently offered a free webinar (with CE Certificate) on Returning to Rigorous Mathematics. Here’s a preview:
As students return to a hopefully more typical school year, learning is likely to be anything but typical. Student and teacher experiences over the past 18 months have varied greatly and classrooms are filled with students representing a wider range of learning needs than ever before. The challenge for teachers is to help each student move their mathematics learning forward. While it will take time for most students to return to typical “on-grade-level” expectations, we must support students to move forward rather than picking up instruction where “regular school” left off in March 2020. Responding to this wide range of learners is part of the job in education; the pandemic has made this part of the work more prominent in many classrooms.
I have several articles over December that discuss this issue (links won’t work until publication date):
What is ‘Technical Math’–December 10, 2021 (this article)
Returning to Rigorous Mathematics–December 16, 2021
Math Scores Drop Again–December 17, 2021
If you’re struggling with math success in your classroom, here are some more resources offered by Ask a Tech Teacher:
