Thursday, April 10, 2014

Quick PSA for Precalculus

We are now into our Logarithms and E Unit, but before that I wanted to review exponent rules and manipulations for a day. We did that, but I showed my students THIS Public Service Announcement. To set the stage for their project.

We went over 6 different exponent rules, and I mentioned that if everyone remembered them really well just from taking notes and practicing them, then we wouldn't need this review. I said that they each were assigned one of the 6 rules, and they had to make a PSA for that rule. 

We discussed that JUST restating the rule was not effective and sort of besides the point. We discussed that humor or shock value is effective. We discussed linking new things to things you know. We also discussed that the thinking of the actual content was the hardest part, and then you had to ink it out, so just use your "pockets of time" in the next 2 days to brainstorm through some creative ideas.

I also only gave them until the NEXT class to do it (8.5" x 11" paper, colored, correct, effective...). I also joked with them that if I had given them a week, they would have left it until the last minute anyway, so just pretend I assigned it last week.

Don't know if this will be effective or not, but I liked the project, and I liked seeing the wittiness and creativity of kids that I may not otherwise talk to that much because they're not the yappers in class. Here are some samples.







7 comments:

  1. Love this! A few years ago the Pre-AP Algebra 2 came up with "touching leads to multiplying" for the power of a power rule and the kids have NEVER forgotten it. They even put in on the back of a t-shirt one year!

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  2. Hah! ..... And here's something funny. I was reading your comment and not getting it because I was in the Electronics mode and reading "leads" as a noun and it didn't make sense ..... now with "leads" as a verb, that totally cracks me up.

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  3. Hi. I just found your blog looking for a way to introduce, teach, ... radical functions and came across this which will come up next. I really like the PSA project idea. Thanks for sharing! One question, did you use this .as. the review or you gave separate review problems? and if separate, you assigned the project after the review. You may have said, I could be reading it wrong...

    ps. I also teach DE and read Jennifer's comment as leads in an electronics sense. :) funny. I didn't get it until I read your reply.

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  4. Hi Monica. I did separate review problems in the form of a puzzle sheet. We also spent a part/all of class refreshing our memories and going through examples to link them to the rules. Here is the link to that homework:
    https://app.box.com/s/xgpaqhm778rqhbxv2cjr

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  5. Great ideas, and thank you for sharing students examples. They are all excellent and very creative.

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  6. my first visit to your blog, Greetings

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  7. I like your idea of share information through beautiful images.
    USA Maths Tutor

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