The Relevancy of Math
Transferring mathematical learning into a creative product is a great way to see if the student totally understood the mathematical ideas and was able to reason mathematically. Creativity allows the child to go beyond basic computation. Just computing or replicating the mathematical concept will not show a great depth of understanding in what was taught.
Both these videos display math in everyday life. They show that math is relevant, creative, artistic, beautiful and useful. Gifted children have a passion for relevance in their learning especially if it applies to everyday life. These videos demonstrate that math is more than numbers and is still out there to be discovered.
As a response to these videos, I would challenge my students to find math in nature. They would take pictures or videos and then transfer these photos into a creative product showing the mathematical concepts behind them. They could arrange their pictures onto poster board into the shape of the concept they are covering such as taking pictures of Fibonacci’s sequence found in nature and then gluing them into a golden rectangle or spiral. They could take pictures of right triangles found in nature and arrange them into a Pythagorean puzzle. They could make a rap or song or poem of Eratosthenes’ discovery that the earth was round. Or act out Archimedes’ discovery of buoyancy and water displacement.
These videos could also be a stepping stone to finding geometric designs in real life and through a painting show the interconnectedness of these shapes by overlapping angles, edges, vertices etc. Or they could make a kite using any geometric shape (e.g. tetrahedron) and explain the math embedded within. They could explore symmetry, sliding and flipping through acrobatic, dance or gymnastic stunts. They could draw a pictorial representation of a logic puzzle. They could go online and make collages or webs using words that deal with a particular concept in math.
Transferring mathematical learning into a creative product is a great way to see if the student totally understood the mathematical ideas and was able to reason mathematically. Creativity allows the child to go beyond basic computation. Just computing or replicating the mathematical concept will not show a great depth of understanding in what was taught.
Both these videos display math in everyday life. They show that math is relevant, creative, artistic, beautiful and useful. Gifted children have a passion for relevance in their learning especially if it applies to everyday life. These videos demonstrate that math is more than numbers and is still out there to be discovered.
As a response to these videos, I would challenge my students to find math in nature. They would take pictures or videos and then transfer these photos into a creative product showing the mathematical concepts behind them. They could arrange their pictures onto poster board into the shape of the concept they are covering such as taking pictures of Fibonacci’s sequence found in nature and then gluing them into a golden rectangle or spiral. They could take pictures of right triangles found in nature and arrange them into a Pythagorean puzzle. They could make a rap or song or poem of Eratosthenes’ discovery that the earth was round. Or act out Archimedes’ discovery of buoyancy and water displacement.
These videos could also be a stepping stone to finding geometric designs in real life and through a painting show the interconnectedness of these shapes by overlapping angles, edges, vertices etc. Or they could make a kite using any geometric shape (e.g. tetrahedron) and explain the math embedded within. They could explore symmetry, sliding and flipping through acrobatic, dance or gymnastic stunts. They could draw a pictorial representation of a logic puzzle. They could go online and make collages or webs using words that deal with a particular concept in math.
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