In her last session, Gail mentioned using technology as a tool. We need to help students:
Confront their misconceptions.
Structure their knowledge.
Identify and clarify key concepts.
Play with ideas.
Students learn if:
They are actively involved in choosing and evaluating strategies.
They explore contrasting cases and notice differences.
To get students to do these things, Interactive Math Boxes on the TI-Nspire are a great way to start. The first thing we do is create a set and then evaluate a function using those set values:
The discussion then will center around how we know that the two sets that came up equal are actually algebraically equivalent. We would chalk-talk a little about what we could do to prove equivalence. Going back to the Nspire then we can have the students find another expression that is equivalent and the Nspire will give instant feedback. So pick a misconception (in the above example we were getting at the idea that some kids might add 3+4 first before distributing) and build a math box to confront it.
For the next example we made a slider and entered an expression:
Can I make it zero? Can I put in a y to make 22? Can I make an equivalent expression? These are all things you might do with the slider model.
Next we used an interactive math box to roll some dice:
In the last example we looked at, we considered how weird it would be to walk into a Starbucks and find that 31 out of the 52 people there were female:
One final video showing the same example above but using the randbin command:
Well, here we go. The Lake was beautiful on the way in and I am very excited to start another year at Green Lake. Apparently we will be the first group in WI or IL to use the new CX (color) version of the Nspire.
Ray’s main points:
The TI-Nspire is a computer, not a calculator and you have to adjust your thinking.
The relationship between Documents – Problems – Pages is key.
Anytime something is bold, it is defined.
Escape and Tab are key. If one of them doesn’t do the trick, the other one probably will.
Look at the corners of the screen to give you an indication of what is happening and what mode you are in.
In list and spreadsheet pages, a list has a name and spreadsheets are blank.
Adding a “problem” is only done one way (Doc –> Insert –> Problem) because it is a special thing to do that requires you understand item 2 above.
Adding a “problem” clears out all variables and you can start fresh.
delete, delete, delete will clear your history or graphs or whatever you’re looking at
Geez, let’s do some math already!
Ok, not quite to the math yet but here are some quotable quotes:
“The commutative property of exponentiation. The one property that every kid knows”
“The kids won’t always believe me, but they will always believe their calculator.”
Here’s a little math for you:
I’m doing this on my computer but it is exactly what the kids would do and see on their TI-Nspires.
Finally! The color CX’s are here.
They are quite a bit thinner and completely rechargeable (No AAA batteries!).
How about importing a picture and fitting a curve to it:
Lastly then, I’ll show you the last activity that we did. I’ve left out any discussion of the pedagogy of the activity and focused on what the Nspire can do. You can determine the value and implications for yourself. Cheers!
