Megan+Witcher

Unit Plan Link

My name is Megan. I am a senior at Clemson University majoring in Math Teaching. My overall goal is to one day get my AP certification to teach at the AP Calculus level. I am originally from Anderson, SC and would love to stay around the upstate of South Carolina to teach one day.

**Sketchup Reflection**
I think SketchUp can be beneficial in a classroom so that students can have a visual component of what they are doing. There are many concepts that can be covered in Sketchup. Teachers can use it to create a problem that would allow the students to better understand an idea. Also, students can use it to play with and create something in order to show their own understanding of an idea.

Real World Concept Lessons


"SAR Project" @http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/SAR_Project.html This lesson will address concepts such as patterns, rates, measurement, and problem solving. While this lesson is suggested for 7th - 8th grade, it may also work for 9th graders who are in a lower level algebra class. This lesson works on Project Based Learning, where the students either work in pairs or small groups.

The instructional approach may be difficult. A project like this would take several days to complete. The teacher acts as in class facilitator who should be moving around the classroom, asking questions to the students about what they've discovered so far. A good way to assess the students' learning from this project would be for the students to keep a journal of what they learn and how that applies to this assignment. At the end, students should be able to relate time and movement as functions of each other. They will do this through measurement and a 24 hour clock. This will allow them to find a pattern and find where the "missing person" is.

I think this lesson would be really fun for most students. A teacher could go all out, making the students dress up as if they were going on a rescue mission. However, this project takes a lot of class time. Depending on the restriction of standards, I may use this in my class. While I feel like this is a good project, I honestly think it just takes up too much time to be implemented in a classroom. If I could make any changes, it would just be the amount of material needed to complete the project. I think the assignment of finding the relationship between time and distance in order to find a sequence and then predict the location of a swimmer. One good thing is that the assignment asks each student to participate by taking a different approaches to the same problem and then discuss it.

**Math Trivia**
media type="custom" key="4310889" I think this kind of video would be really good to show on either the first day of class or as a class opener kind of thing. It’s a fun way to let students see the impact of math in different areas. Plus, they can go home and tell their parents the cool things they learned in school that will blow their parents’ minds. I know I always loved having an interesting math fact to share, so I think the students would appreciate having some good math trivia to know.

**Solving a Matrix Equation**
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I thought this video was really helpful because it explained how to multiply matrices in simple terms and related it to something students already knew. They could use what they knew of how to solve for x in a simple equation to solve for a matrix in a more complex equation. I think the video did a great job explaining the steps of matrix equations. While it was a little corny, it was still a great concept.