New ways of thinking about math at math camp

MOSES LAKE — Hmmm.

The windows at the WorkSource building are triangles and rectangles inside of triangles and rectangles. But how does a middle school student figure out the area of a window, and the triangles and rectangles inside?

Hmmm.

Okay – kids can take a tape measure and measure one side. That’s a good starting point. But what if other kids are using all the tape measures? Well, there’s just plain old tape. Use that to measure the window, cut it off, tape the strip to the sidewalk and measure that.

There are lots of different ways to find the answer. And that’s the point behind math camp.

Math camp is a summer program for middle school students, sponsored by the Moses Lake School District and written by Moses Lake middle school math teachers. The lessons are designed to teach math, but they’re also designed to “get (students) to problem-solve and communicate. Which is huge in math,” said Robin Harrell, one of the lead teachers on the team writing the curriculum.

Math camp was open to all middle school students and attracted about 110 students from Frontier and Chief Moses middle schools, said Triscia Hochstatter, the district’s assistant director of teaching and learning. “Something we put together so kids could think visually about math,” said instructor Joe Johnson.

Instructor Sara Larson cited a lesson she called “circle fever.” She started with three circles, each larger than the last. Kids had to determine basic math facts like circumference and radius, then had to determine the percentage of growth between circles. The kids were disappointed when class ended, she said.

Larson used blocks to teach kids about Fibonacci sequences (where each number is the sum of the two previous numbers). The program emphasizes the visual approach, “looking at patterns that we could see,” Larson said.

“And when you look at patterns, you’re really looking at the basics of algebra,” Harrell said.

The lessons emphasize what Larson called ‘relevant” math, math used in ways kids can see, relate to and understand. “Something that’s really interesting to them,” she said. After the students measured the windows at Worksource, they heard from an instructor who showed them how math is used in construction.

Math camp is also designed to encourage kids to look under the surface of math problems and really think about how math works. “We want them to be curious,” Harrell said.

It’s a process the math teachers called “deep thinking” and it’s a way to encourage interest in math for kids who aren’t sure about their math skills. “Being slow at math doesn’t mean you’re not good at math,” Johnson said.

Frontier principal Greg Kittrell said math camp doubles as a professional development opportunity for teachers, and the teachers said they have learned right along with the students.