pi day and a multicultural unit

Yesterday, March 16, we celebrated Pi day two days late.  My geometry students are in the middle of a unit on perimeter, area, and circles, so the timing was perfect.  This week, with the HSPE, most of my Geometry students were testing for 3 hours in the morning.  Our school decided to hold all 6 classes every day, so each class was 25 minutes long.

This was a great day to celebrate our community and introduce a little math geek trivia about pi (did you know that MIT traditionally announces admissions on March 14, at 1:59pm?).  I had told my class that I would bring pie, but couldn’t imagine the mess that apple pies would make on the carpeted rooms.  So, I shared that I’m Korean and many Korean kids eat Choco-Pie, a little chocolate covered marshmallow-cookie sandwich.  Many of them knew what it was.  I had already checked with the students about food allergies, and warned them about crumbs impacting any future food treats.  They were great!  They inhaled the treats, giving no chance of crumbs, and did a great job of cleaning up.  I had forgotten how hungry many teenage boys are.  I’d never seen kids get up so quickly to get seconds.  It was good to see that some kids did read the label to know how many calories they were consuming.  Perhaps there’s a future lesson incorporating food labels?

This unit has been the most multicultural of all units so far.  Students found areas of each shape in different international flags.  The Pythagorean theorem has ancient proofs from India, China, and Greece.  The ancient Babylonians had the Pythagorean Triples.  The timeline spanning 4000 years and the international map I showed really interested the students.  And we’re topping it off by celebrating Pi day with a Korean treat!

5.3 Circles lesson plan and reflection

Today’s lesson plan had an anticipatory set reviewing perfect squares (1-13) and labeling parts of a circle, which activated prior knowledge.  It was useful because some students were multiplying the number by 2, instead of squaring.  ELL students especially benefited from labelling and reviewing center, radius, diameter, and Circumference.  The big ideas were understanding pi as an infinite ratio, distinguishing between exact and approximate answers.  We reviewed calculator skills (finding the square root), and measurement (using the tape to read diameters and circumferences of various round objects from my pantry).

Reflection:

On the plus side: I got through the plan in both classes, was able to clarify misconceptions, and helped students individually while everyone else got a chance to start on homework in class.  I got a dyad in and a turn-and talk, as well as students up and moving out of their seats to get (and return) their things to measure. I brought in a multicultural aspect when I talked about the ancient Babylonians and Egyptions trying to calculate pi.

To improve next time:  I could have had the students come to the board and fill in the data instead of calling it out and me writing it.  I could have activated more prior knowledge: what did they already know about pi?  I had a high cognitive demand question that I didn’t cover very thoroughly in one class, so I changed this and did it more in the second class.  There was still too much talking on my part.  I suspect that when almost everyone gets the exit task right that perhaps I didn’t challenge some people enough.  I had a discipline issue in my second class that I was unsuccessful with.  I ended up calling home afterschool and writing a referral for insubordination.