Science Fair Projects website

If you are looking for ideas for science projects check out Science Fair Central at Discovery Education. There is a great list of different project ideas with questions to ask and ideas of what data to collect for the projects. Their are also many different tips on how to make your science project a success.

Open Office and different first page headers.

I've used Open Office for quite a while now and always been frustrated with the fact that I didn't know how to do a different header on the first page. Since I have not had to use this personally it hasn't been a big deal. Now my wife is taking a writing class needs to be able to do this so I finally started trying to figure it out. Enough of the preamble.

I discovered that it is really pretty simple. Go to the first page of you document and bring up the styles (press F11) and then find the page styles lists and select "First Page." That's even easier than when using MS Word. The only issue now is that the feature does not apply when saving as a Word document.

Getting students to think about wrong answers

A common way of teaching in a multi-grade classroom is to have students check their own work. The biggest reason for this is that it can help the teacher manage the amount of grading and give the student quick feedback on how they did. There are several problems with this though. First you have to still spot check to make sure that they are being honest. Second is that when most students get the answer wrong they simply mark it wrong and don't think about why. A solution to this is to have an electronic grader which tells the student whether they got the answer right or wrong but doesn't tell them what the right answer is until they get it right.

I'm currently trying an experiment with my 5th grade students to see how well this works. I've input as many questions as possible from their textbook into Moodle, an online learning management system. They have used it twice now and ask for help when they can't figure out what the answer is. Which is exactly what I'm wanting. They try to figure it out and if they can't they ask for extra help.

Currently the biggest problem with this is that more complicated problems are harder to enter into the system.

I'll post more about the results later.

Visualizing Data

To survive in today's society you need to be able to visualize information to help you process the sheer quantity of information that we are overwhelmed with every day. Read through the process I went through to determine the success of my website and have your students walk through the same process. You can download a worksheet for this activity at worksheetshare.com.

Having just developed a new website I was wondering if more people were visiting it or if I needed to try and market it some more. I started by collected the number of pages that were viewed each day.

Page views per day.
13, 5, 22, 2, 15, 12, 5, 0, 36, 8, 5, 16, 18, 3, 26, 8, 27, 9, 13, 6, 0, 0, 14, 5, 22, 20, 22, 0, 8, 38, 36, 44, 26, 47, 1, 28, 36, 46, 35, 17, 48, 14, 52, 33, 101, 19, 36, 16, 25, 22, 26, 63, 4, 32, 4, 1, 18, 36, 22, 47, 22, 1, 1

Looking at this information I found it pretty hard to determine any trends over time. Since I'm a visual person let's put it into a line graph and see if that helps.

It looks like there was a peak with a value of 101 but what about the next few days. Maybe that was just one person that really liked what was there and spent a lot of time looking around.

Lets try rearranging it, since this represents pages viewed per day one way to represent it would be to divide the numbers up onto 7 columns where each column represents a day of the week and each row represented a week.

Page views per day by week
13, 5, 22, 2, 15, 12, 5
0, 36, 8, 5, 16, 18, 3
26, 8, 27, 9, 13, 6, 0
0, 14, 5, 22, 20, 22, 0
8, 38, 36, 44, 26, 47, 1
28, 36, 46, 35, 17, 48, 14
52, 33, 101, 19, 36, 16, 25
22, 26, 63, 4, 32, 4, 1
18, 36, 22, 47, 22, 1, 1

From arranging information this way I can reasonably say that there are fewer page views on Saturday than during the rest of the week. The last line appears to have a few more page views than the first line but how does that relate to the rest of the week.

What about putting it into a nicely formatted table.

13	5	22	2	15	12	5
0	36	8	5	16	18	3
26	8	27	9	13	6	0
0	14	5	22	20	22	0
8	38	36	44	26	47	1
28	36	46	35	17	48	14
52	33	101	19	36	16	25
22	26	63	4	32	4	1
18	36	22	47	22	1	1

That's a little better but it is still hard to tell what is going on or any trends over time.
Adding up the number of views per week gave me the following numbers.

74, 86, 89, 83, 200, 224, 282, 152, 147

This is easier to understand but still harder to see. Lets plot the graph and see if the trend is a little more visible.
I like the looks of this graph. It appears that the number of page views has increased during the first few weeks but then decreased at the end.

What about the number of visitors? Are there more people using the website or are there just a few visitors downloading more pages?

Here is the number of visits per day for the same time period. Have your students work through the data and see if trend for visitors is any different than the trend for page views.

Visitors per day:
5, 3, 4, 1, 3, 2, 3, 0, 6, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 6, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2, 0, 0, 7, 2, 5, 4, 6, 0, 4, 8, 5, 14, 9, 4, 1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 7, 7, 3, 8, 13, 18, 7, 5, 2, 5, 4, 9, 11, 3, 13, 1, 1, 2, 9, 8, 9, 10, 1, 1

A worksheet has been created to help students Visualize the given data.

Concept Based teaching of Algebra

I started doing some research last night about different ways to improve students understanding of Algebra and stumbled across this website "Teaching Math" at learner.org. It is an excellent resource with lots of narrative & video examples of how some teachers have helped students discover math concepts.

The only disadvantage of the videos is that you don't have any control over them. A pause button would be a great addition to the site.

Is there a math facts connection?

Having taught Algebra 1 for over 8 years I have always felt that there is a connection between how well a student understands arithmetic and how well they do in the my Algebra I class. So I decided to do a little bit of research to determine if this could be supported. Here is a graph of the results. The blue line through the graph is a regression line.Details about the study:

• 2 classes
• 11 students: 10 & 11 graders
  
• 14 students: 9 graders and one 12 grader
• Arithmetic test:
  1 minute timed test of multiplying numbers 1 through 10.
• Accuracy of test student responses was mostly 90-100%
  
• 100 multiplication problems were provided
  
• Highest number problems completed 57.
• Highest number of problems completed correctly 56.
  
• Grade came from the previous quarter to determine the level of success in Algebra I because it was available for all students.

Trends and Interpretation:
Except for the two outliers indicated as yellow the trend seems to say that the better you are at arithmetic the better your score will be in Algebra I. The outliers can be explained as a student that is unmotivated and the other as a student that is trying but struggling. Though this isn't enough data to make a case it sure does begin to show a pattern that supports my hypothesis. I'm not sure how good of a predictor it is because as you move along any grid line there is quite a spread between the scores. Also there is the variable of different grading style between 2 teachers for the students grades. It would be great if someone would duplicate this study with the same teacher and a larger student populous.
It should be noted that you don't see any grid points in the upper left and the lower right indicating a good arithmetic score and a bad grade or a good grade and a bad arithmetic score.
Thus I feel that the claim can be supported that the better you are at arithmetic the better you will do in Algebra I. Please feel free to add you data in the comments below. You can find the Math Facts test at worksheetshare.com.

New Worksheets Website

Since it appears that there is an interest in worksheets I've created. I decided to create a new website where you will not only have access to worksheets that I've created but also others. The new website is Worksheet Share.com
Currently there are over 17 math worksheets available, but it is growing. Ranging from addition facts to graph paper, that is problem friendly, to factoring polynomials. Anyone can sign up for a free account and post worksheets that they have created.

Here's how it works. You save your worksheet as a PDF, sign up for a free account, and post your worksheet. Once the worksheet is screened by the users on the system it will be made available for anyone to download.

If you are looking for a particular topic simply search by keyword. If you found someone at worksheetshare where you really like there worksheets simply browse the worksheets created by that author.

You can even make some money from your worksheets. Check it out. Once enough worksheets become available for a particular subject you will be able to order a book on a particular topic or keyword. You can keep track of the plans and improvements at the Worksheet Share blog.