Each month Asked & Answered highlights selected threads from the MyNCTM community. MyNCTM is an online community where NCTM members can ask questions, start and join discussions, and interact with education experts. We encourage you to join the conversation at https://my.nctm.org.
Micah S. Stohlmann
An escape room can be a great way for students to apply and practice mathematics they have learned. This article describes the development and implementation of a mathematical escape room with important principles to incorporate in escape rooms to help students persevere in problem solving.
Manouchehri Azita, Ozturk Ayse, and Sanjari Azin
In this article we illustrate how one teacher used PhET cannonball simulation as an instructional tool to improve students' algebraic reasoning in a fifth grade classroom. Three instructional phases effective to implementation of simulation included: Free play, Structured inquiry and, Synthesizing ideas.
Katherine Baker, Naomi A. Jessup, Victoria R. Jacobs, Susan B. Empson, and Joan Case
Productive struggle is an essential part of mathematics instruction that promotes learning with deep understanding. A video scenario is used to provide a glimpse of productive struggle in action and to showcase its characteristics for both students and teachers. Suggestions for supporting productive struggle are provided.
The Asked & Answered department shares excerpts from discussion threads on the online MyNCTM community. In this issue, featured threads highlight responses to members' questions related to mathematical depth in preschool, spiral review in the upper elementary grades, ideas for differentiation in middle school, and projects for high school algebra.
Zachary A. Stepp
“It's a YouTube World” (Schaffhauser, 2017), and educators are using digital tools to enhance student learning now more than ever before. The research question scholars need to explore is “what makes an effective instructional video?”.
Micah S. Stohlmann
Dude Perfect has one of the most popular YouTube channels in the United States. An example mathematical activity connected to a Dude Perfect video is described along with the incorporation of assessing and advancing questions.
Erell Germia and Nicole Panorkou
We present a Scratch task we designed and implemented for teaching and learning coordinates in a dynamic and engaging way. We use the 5Es framework to describe the students' interactions with the task and offer suggestions of how other teachers may adopt it to successfully implement Scratch tasks.
Tim Erickson
We modify a traditional bouncing ball activity for introducing exponential functions by modeling the time between bounces instead of the bounce heights. As a consequence, we can also model the total time of bouncing using an infinite geometric series.
The Asked & Answered department shares excerpts from discussion threads on the online MyNCTM community. In this issue, featured threads highlight responses to members' questions regarding 1st grade number sense, multiplication and division of fractions, issues of definition and precision related to circles, and the value of rationalizing denominators.
