Hello MathWorld Fans!
Seventh and Eighth grade students from St. Mary's in Staten Island have been participating in Math World since the fall of 1997. They completed 2 rounds on the Electronic Schoolhouse on AOL and now participate with MathWorld Interactive on the WWW. Peter and Remy, our star eighth graders won the first sweepstakes! Peter is holding the bulletin board which was made from my daughter's old science project board and Megan is the proud pointer.
The kids work in groups to solve the problems, but each submit a solution. We have only one computer connected to the net so it was hard for everyone to see all the work. We made this bulletin board so that the whole class can see everyone's work. At first, it was to "show off" our work at the open house during Catholic School Week, but we use it to learn from each other and the students we have come to know "online".
Although we have done group projects and writing in math class in the past, MathWorld has taken the drudgery out of Mrs. D's (the author) assignments. I can motivate my students because they look forward to seeing their published work on the net and they love the competition. The best part is hearing all the positive comments that the harried Mrs. D. sometimes forgets.
For me, the motivation that MathWorld provides is an invaluable tool. The focus on non-routine problem solving gets kids out of the mathematical rut of elementary school of finding the right "answer". The jam-packed elementary school curriculum often lacks this skill.
Also, I get to reinforce concepts or introduce new ones. In the first round, we looked at area and perimeter, in the second we used our estimation skills and decimal skills, and in the third they saw some practical uses for scientific notation.
I could go on about the benefits of MathWorld, but I think you get the picture.
By the way, I took your advice about singing the format. The kids were having a hard time remembering to tell all you know, etc. Since I can't sing, I let the kids come up with their own tunes. We had nursery rhyme type songs, ballads, harmony, and one incredible rap by our own FAB FOUR (Jonathan, Danny, Billy, Paul) complete with sound effects.
Would you like to see your school or children's work highlighted here? Just email a scanned picture in .GIF or .JPG format and a brief explanation.
Copyright 1998-2002 Carolynn S. Mortensen