MathsClass

Teaching Year 10 with Laptops

Sunday, 07 February 2010 | 2 Comments

In 2009, Year 9 got their DER netbooks and now they are in Year 10. This year’s Year 9 does not have their netbooks yet, and so this gives teachers a little time to get their heads around the inclusion of netbooks into the classroom. This year, I’m teaching a 5.2 pathway Year 10 class (and a Year 9 5.2 class).

The one thing I learnt from using netbooks with Year 9 in 2009, is that their inclusion is best done as a whole lesson activity. An additional or alternative activity at the end of a lesson is not effective due to the time for login and dealing with technical issues.

However, the problem with consuming a whole lesson for a laptop activity is that it has to be worthwhile. I think this is where many teachers will struggle. If they have an effective lesson already, why change it? For me, my lessons may be effective, but how do I make them more so with the laptops? Does having a lesson using the laptop near the start of the unit establish a better foundation for the rest of the unit?

To start planning for the inclusion of netbooks, here’s a summary of what I’ll be covering in 2010. At the moment, some topics have nothing beside them – hopefully they will be filled in later. Feel free to share in the comments how you will be tackling these topics with the laptops.

Trigonometry

Over the summer holidays, I took an online course called GeoGebra: A Dynamic Approach to Yr 9-10 Trigonometry. Whilst a little pricey for an online course, I have attended the presenter’s (Richard Andrew) courses in the past and appreciated the practical nature of them.

Basically, this course suggests a number of ways of using GeoGebra in place of something you might already do in the classroom. For example, using GeoGebra to investigate the ratio of sides in a right-angled triangle and finding the relationship by recording the results in Excel.

Other ways the course suggested using GeoGebra was for demonstration purposes, but also getting the students to create their own files which demonstrate the solution to a problem. I see using the netbooks with my class to be a benefit for problem solving, an aspect of trigonometry which they would normally struggle with. GeoGebra will make it far more visual, and maybe a little bit fun.

Consumer Arithmetic

There’s the obvious spreadsheet work that can be included.
I might try to include a research activity, for example, looking at the Award for various occupations.

Ratios

Rates

I’ll definitely include the World’s Fastest Clapper

Scale

Similarity

Congruence

I’m going to re-read Kate’s post Triangle Congruence Theorems. This is what I like about teacher’s blogging, Kate plainly states “Triangle Congruence Theorems are so boring, and there is no nice way to teach them” and then throws around some ideas and seeks input.

Reasoning in Geometry (Angles)

Data Representation and Analysis

Probability

Graphing Linear Equations

This post will hopefully be updated as I go.

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