Integers was the topic of study in this week's math class. Although dealing with negative numbers can sometimes be stressful to some students, we discovered several ways to make adding and subtraction with positive and negative numbers fun.
Our first activity revolved around a game called Integer Football. Although I am not a fan of sports in the least, I did find this to be an enjoyable activity, and I could see how students would be excited to add and subtract integers within the concept of this game. A little bit of competition never ceases to motivate! Brittany and I were team Negative, playing against the Positive team of Catherine and Andrea. Team Negative was completely crushed. However, Brittany and I eagerly added and subtracted positive and negative numbers without complaint as we attempted to beat Team Positive. Another game that we played was Integer Spinner which consisted of spinning a wheel to land on a positive or negative number. You would then roll a die to see how many cards you could use to add up to this number using the various integer cards. This game was less competitive than Integer Football and I felt like it could benefit from some kind of scoring system, so that it would feel more like a game.
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| Erika I. (2016 October 17). Integer Spinner [photograph]. Retrieved from personal albums. |
Another activity we worked on was solving a word problem concerning the elevation of the Dead Sea and Mount Everest. It's no secret that students do not tend to favour word problems, as they can be intimidated by a paragraph of text posing a problem to solve. However, working together can help to shed light on different ways of approaching a word problem. In our table groups, we each attempted to solve the Dead Sea/Mount Everest issue individually. Then we shared our solutions by writing them on a sticky note and joining the sticky notes together on a common worksheet.
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| Erika I. (2016, October 17). Stick-It Together Integers [photograph]. Retrieved from personal albums. |
My Post-It note was the yellow one (displayed above), and it ended up being the solution that my group agreed upon using. I used addition discover the difference between the Dead Sea's negative elevation, and Mount Everest's positive elevation, because I knew that subtracting a negative number from a positive number results in a positive number, and thus can be converted to addition.
We solved another word problem concerning Mount Everest where I employed a similar technique to solve the problem, using addition and division. However, we were also given the opportunity to see how other groups solved the problem, and it was interesting to see how our techniques varied.
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| Erika I. (2016 October 17). Mount Everest Word Problem Illustration [photograph]. Retrieved from personal albums. |
As you can see from the photo above, one group took the time to draw out the word problem, so that they could solve the question through visualization. Whereas my method was quicker, this group's method proved to produce a more accurate answer. I did not round my answer up, but this group did because they were able to visually confirm that their mountain climber would need to have a sleeping bag that covered a full -17 degrees. Also I really liked how detailed this group made their illustration! The waving mountain climber is a nice touch!
Once I again, I was struck by how different the means of achieving an answer can be! Mathematics is not nearly as cut and dry as it is often described. There is always another way to solve a problem, and the real challenge of mathematics is discovering which method is best for you! Teachers must encourage their students to explore multiple means of problem solving, rather than forcing children to adhere to a single, rigid method.
