Death of a Marker

One thing that I find very irritating is when one of my students leaves the cap off of a dry erase marker. This happened a couple of weeks ago, and to illustrate how deeply it bothers me, I had a funeral service at the beginning of each of my classes. Standing next to a grave of dead markers (which is basically a box with a foam tombstone attached), I said the following:

"I regret to inform you that this morning, at approximately 7:40 A.M, I entered the classroom and noticed that the cap on Black Dry-Erase Low Odor Chiseled Tip Expo Marker was not firmly attached. I feared the worst, rushed over to Black Dry-Erase Low Odor Chiseled Tip Expo Marker, picked it up, and attempted to draw a squiggle on the board. Alas, nothing came out. Black Dry-Erase Low Odor Chiseled Tip Expo Marker's life force was depleted.

Today, we honor the life of  Black Dry-Erase Low Odor Chiseled Tip Expo Marker. No, you weren't perfect. Mistakes were made. But, you were a bold marker. You helped us solve the most difficult of math problems. It seems like just yesterday we were writing the one-hour delay bell schedule on the board.

You were taken from this world too soon. Your last act was to write "Hi Mr Kraft" on the board with a smiley face underneath. Little did I know, that you were really saying good-bye. I will miss you Black Dry-Erase Low Odor Chiseled Tip Expo Marker. Say "hi" to Red for us."

---------------------------------
Here is a picture of Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II. Some of my students find this poster disturbing. I don't know why.

"Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I'll be back." -Vigo, the Carpathian

51 Days til Halloween?

I really like the following activity and I've blogged about it here.

Which is why I got really excited when I saw this Halloween decoration the other day at Michael's:

You can display this decoration 51 days before Halloween! Or can you?

What if this decoration can't display each number between 1 and 51? Would that constitute as some sort of false advertising?

TMC13 Recap - (Where I basically just talk about people behind their backs.)

This was supposed to be a recap of cool things I learned at Twitter Math Camp 2013 (TMC13). But then I thought, the hell with you people. You should have been there. It's your fault that you don't know what happened. Why should I fill you in on every little thing? Let this be a lesson to you. Next time, you can get yourself off of that damn couch and attend a conference.

Alright. Maybe your lameness can be blamed on having a horrible childhood. Or maybe you're too poor to make the trip. I guess I can cut you some slack.

I'm not going to give a detailed description of presentations I attended. There are already a lot of people already doing that. To me, the coolest thing about this conference is meeting all of the people I've been following in blogs and on twitter. These people have had an amazing impact on who I am as a teacher. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet them, exchange more ideas, and have some fun in the process. So this is basically an homage to those I've met and how awesome they are.

Every year I try to achieve some sort of ideal in my practices. Fawn Nguyen epitomizes what that ideal should be. I don't know anyone who blogs as honestly or as intelligently as she does. She is obviously an amazing teacher and I strive to be just like her...just taller and less Vietnamese. She did a presentation on Conway's Rational Tangles.

John Berray is another great teacher, which I didn't really realize until I attended his session this year at TMC. He is obviously a great performer in the classroom and I have to believe that his students adore him. He does this great activity called Shot at the Glory. Check it out.

John also taught us the best way to open bananas. (This isn't him in the video.) I tried it out this morning and it works like a charm.



I met Max Ray during the EnCoMPASS fellowship and was impressed by his notice/wonder talk. He has such a natural sense of humor and I could just listen to him talk about anything. He's also written a book which will be out very soon. I'm so excited to read it! (He also gave me free passes for me and my son to use at the Elmwood Park Zoo. Nice guy.)

Michael Pershan is probably one of the most reflective teachers I've met. I envy his curiosity and enjoy reading and listening to his thoughts. And the highlight of my trip has to be his performance of "99 Problems" at karaoke. I don't think anyone was expecting that.

Ashli Black impresses me how she is able to immerse herself in this strange mathy world of ours, traveling to anything and everything including PCMI. I attended her presentation on building algebraic thinking. It was a great hands-on activity that can spark a lot of great conversation in the classroom. I also have to give her a shout out for suggesting I read Embedded Formative Assessment. The research on feedback is very surprising.

Lisa Henry did an amazing job on organizing all of this and I can't thank her (and her husband) enough for doing it. I'd also like to thank her husband for not punching me in the face after I sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with his wife.

It was cool meeting Nik Doran, because he's British and I've been watching a lot of British TV lately: Doctor Who and Sherlock. He's no Benedict Cumberbatch, so I closed my eyes and pretended he was. (What? No. I'm not in love with Benedict Cumberbatch. I mean, yeah, he's incredibly handsome and quirky. But love? No. I mean, I like him. Let's change the subject. This is making me uncomfortable.) I'm also impressed with how he's trying to bring this weird twitterblogosphere thing to the UK.

Sadie Estrella is full of piss and vinegar, which is a testament to how passionate she is about life and teaching. I also think she could beat me up.

Chris Robinson is a great resource who also lives in Pennsylvania. I'm always impressed with the amount of time he gives to this math community. It was nice to share our aggravations over how stupid Pennsylvania is being over their implementation (or non-implementation) of the Common Core Standards.

Eli Luberoff is the founder of desmos.com and gave a great presentation of his software. I've never seen math teachers get so excited over software features. He's also a really nice guy who is genuinely interested in how people are using desmos and how he can improve it for them.

Jen Silverman threw a cardboard dodecahedron at my face as I was trying to drink my coffee.

Christopher Danielson is a very insightful guy and I love his lessons on food (Oreos and Tootsies) and his conversations with his children. He gave a great presentation on the two of the Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions: anticipation and connecting. We were asked to see how many ways we could cut a tootsie roll into four equal pieces. I came up with the following solution, which I wasn't sure about at first, but it works. It's just weird because the four pieces don't have the same shape.

Mark Sanford is starting his first year of teaching. I think it's incredibly awesome that he has tapped into this community before his teaching career has even started. He is so lucky to have so much great direction from the get-go.

The Mathalcious team is basically the Justice League of math education. Karim knows how to find talent (Chris Lusto, Ginny Stuckey, Matt Lane, Kate Nowak), and I am continually impressed by what he and his team have produced. I am also grateful to now have an understanding of the "romance cone" which is a graphical way of representing the dating rule of "half your age plus 7".

Sean Sweeney, Rachel Kernodle, Julie Reulbach, Kate Nowak, Chris Lusto and Greg (something or other) did a great job ending the conference with a parody of Tik-Tok by Kesha. At the last minute, they asked me to go up on stage with them and dance, but I'm glad I didn't. It was too much fun to watch.



Greg (in the video above) gave a quick talk on how he uses his ukelele to teach students. Apparently, when students are working and he is playing his ukelele, the students think that he is too busy to be bothered, so they look to each other for help. He still walks around the room and monitors their progress, but he is no longer a crutch for the students. Genius.

Julie Reulbach (also in the video above) always has an infectious smile on her face and is perpetually happy. I'm so glad that I got to know her a little better.

Kate Nowak (also in the video above) had a great t-shirt with the following image. Kate also asked me to sing Van Halen's Hot for Teacher at karaoke. How could I refuse?

Shauna Hedgepeth gave a great presentation on some of the activities she does with her statistics classes. The coolest part was that I'm able to take any of those ideas and use them in a middle school classroom. She also had us running up stairs to find our horsepower.

Steve Leinwand has a loud booming voice, which fits him because he seems like the authority on mathematics education. I'm still impressed that he came to the conference which shows just how cool and involved he is.

Sam Shah is a lovable guy and fun to hang out with. I was a little worried that I offended him because I told him that I did not enjoy watching Real Housewives of...Wherever, but I think he's forgiven me. I'm so glad that I got to spend some time with him my last night there. He taught us how to play a really cool word game called Contact.

And what did I provide in return for all of their awesomeness? My amazing dance moves!



Late Additions:

Sophie Germain! I mean Anne Schwartz! Or whatever her name is! That girl was awesome at karaoke night and she did a great little talk about how people need to shut up and listen to students. (We have a tendency to cut people off and try to fix their problems for them.) She's another person I regret not getting to know better.

Whiteboard Envy

My whiteboards are small. And this bothers me, because I know other teachers (Andrew and Fawn) have bigger whiteboards and they're able to do so much more with them. They know how insecure I am, but that doesn't stop them from showing off.

So I decided to write a letter to my administration this morning. I hope that I was convincing.

Ladies and gentlemen,

First off, let me tell you how impressed I am with your charming personalities and insights. You are all very in tune with what works in education, and very supportive of teachers’ requests for new materials.

Incidentally, I have been having some enlightening discussions with some other successful teachers from across the country, and a common theme in group problem-solving is the use of large whiteboards. In my own experiences, a whiteboard seems to have some magical effect on student engagement. Could it be that a clean whiteboard, this blank slate, represents new beginnings and unlimited possibilities? Could it be that students are better at sharing their work when they share their workspace? Do some of my students enjoy the pleasant aromas emanating from their dry-erase markers? (The answer to this is a resounding “Yes!”. One student in particular prefers the black markers because they smell like bananas.) Regardless, it seems that whiteboarding is a preferable medium for students to share their mathematical thinking.

But alas…I do not possess whiteboards of such size that would foster such thinking. My tiny 12” by 12” boards are capable of containing only the smallest amount of information. They are woefully inadequate.

This is why I would like to purchase large, group-friendly, 24” by 32” whiteboards from http://www.whiteboardsusa.com/. Each board costs only $10.50, or the cost of two Pomegranate Frappaccinos. Accounting for the fact that I could have a class of 30 students, and the smallest group I might have is a group of two students, it would make sense that we order 15 boards for a cost of $157.50. There would also be some shipping costs, which might be costly, but isn’t it worth it…you know, for the kids?

Thank you for taking the time to consider this purchase.

Nathan Kraft

Math Department

DHH Lengel Middle School, Pottsville, PA

Class Website: mrkraft.wikispaces.com

Blog: nathankraft.blogspot.com

Update:

Everyone in the twitterverse (and their mothers) is telling me that I should just go to Lowes or Home Depot:

@nathankraft1 @fawnpnguyen @mr_stadel @fnoschese just curious, but why not go to lowes and the school buy multiple class sets for same $?
— Dan Anderson (@dandersod) July 3, 2013

@nathankraft1 @fawnpnguyen @mr_stadel Do you have a Home Depot or Lowes nearby? They can cut a large sheet of tileboard to spec.
— Frank Noschese (@fnoschese) July 3, 2013

@fnoschese @nathankraft1 I went to Lowes. Much cheaper...probably a third the cost.
— Lois Burke (@lbburke) July 3, 2013

I think the biggest concern I have about this is that the edges will be rough which does not look pretty and could give kids splinters. Yeah, I could sand it down...would that be sufficient? I also am concerned about the thickness and quality of the materials. I don't want these things breaking easily. Any thoughts from you, the whiteboarding community?

Finally, Dan Bowdoin had this solution....

@nathankraft1 HD cut these and then I taped them. Lasted all year! #edges @fawnpnguyen @mr_stadel @fnoschese pic.twitter.com/eqUn4fp5TL
— Dan Bowdoin (@danbowdoin) July 3, 2013

The Oasis of Troy

This past week I spent some time in Philadelphia for the EnCoMPASS Project (more on that later). During the last day, Fawn and I were walking downtown and stopped at this fountain near city hall.

There we met a man named Troy who was selling bottled water. He sat comfortably in the shade of a tree and called out to people as they walked by, "Excuse me, would you like some water?" Although it was a warm day and plenty of people were in the park, it didn't seem to me that he was selling much. This probably had more to do with the fact that people don't like to be bothered by random vendors on the street. I'm one of those people, so I could certainly sympathize with them. Or maybe they just didn't want water.

Eventually a couple walked by, and as per usual, Troy asked if they would like some water. The man said "no". Troy followed up with, "perhaps your lady is thirsty?", and without hesitation, the man again said "no". Troy turned to us and said, "he didn't even ask her!" Fawn and I lost it and Troy joked with us about how the girl was likely to start an argument with her boyfriend for not offering her some water.

In order for Troy to increase sales, I made a suggestion. Troy needed to market his product better. People had to see his corner of the park as a refuge from the hot sun...an oasis. The Oasis of Troy!

As the next customer walked by, Troy, who had not sold any bottles for quite some time said, "Welcome to my oasis! Would you like some water?" And sure enough, the man stopped, seemed to think about it for a second, and said, "Yes."

Later, it came up that Fawn and I are math teachers, and Troy became very excited. Aside from selling water, he also sells credit card processors to businesses. He explained that his main competition in credit card processing is something called The Square.

The Square charges 2.75% per credit card swipe with no additional fees. Troy charges 1.09% per swipe with a $10 monthly charge. He explained that he wasn't having much success and that many businesses turned him away, thinking that the monthly fee was too high. But he was convinced that his processor was cheaper. He just didn't know how to express it. There was probably a formula to show this, but he didn't know what it was.

After some discussion with Fawn, we came up with the following formulas:

s = 0.0275x
t = 0.0109x + 10

x is the monthly revenue, s represents the fees charged by The Square, and t represents the fees charged by Troy.

After setting The Square's charges equal to Troy's, we found that the break-even point was about $600. This seemed to be good news for Troy, because if a business takes in more than $600 in revenue, Troy's processor is cheaper. And sure, he looks worse for a revenue less than $600, but any business that takes in less than $600 per month will certainly go out of business.

I asked Troy, what do I say to students who ask, "when would I ever use this?" He said to tell them, "No, you are never going to use this, but knowing it will allow you to do the things that you want to do." Well said.

Update:

For those of you who know Fawn, you know she solves just about every math problem with rectangles. It's uncanny. Here's her solution:

Torturing Kids with Toothpicks - Part 4

If you've been following my blog, you probably know about my adventures with toothpicks. Basically I placed a bunch of them on my classroom floor for a math problem. I only realized this morning that I never showed the final product on my blog...just on my wikispace. You can find all of that work here:

http://mrkraft.wikispaces.com/Triangle+of+Toothpicks

While I received a little bit of feedback from the twitter crowd, I'd appreciate more. Any ideas on presentation? How would you use this in your classroom? What modifications would you make? Any kind of extension ideas?

Thanks!


Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago I made a change to my Three Act page. It wasn't visually appealing (all text) and I thought I could do better. Click here for the new page.

Torturing Kids with Toothpicks - Part 3

Here is the first act of my toothpick lesson. Feedback is appreciated.



Here is part 1 and part 2 of this series.