Our last major math project of 2018 focused around algebra tiles and expanding and factoring equations. Math has never been one of my strong points and continues to do so as I have been struggling with the concepts that were being taught in this unit.
The actual project that we were assigned after doing worksheets and notes for a few weeks was to create a video that uses algebra tiles, perfect squares and factoring to create a game of any sort. I chose to make a card game around algebra tiles using the knowledge I had about them as I thought they were the easiest part of it and I didn’t know how to expand and factor equations as much.
The video needed to be a sort of how to play guide for the game and would be made by groups of two. Except there was an odd number of people in the class so I was in a group of one. I ended up deciding to just make the game rules and instead of printing out the actual game pieces I would just animate ones I drew in keynote for the video. The game I made I just called “Algebra Cards” because I couldn’t think of anything better and it revolves around two players taking turns to attempt to make an algebra tile out of an equation with the person who places the last tile winning. I could have covered the other parts in the project but couldn’t find a way to include them with my game rules.
Here is a mind map showing my knowledge after the project.
I think that choosing curricular competencies for this project is more focused on competencies that I should work on for next time. I definitely think that I need to improve my communicating as I have already talked about how I didn’t communicate my lack of understanding about the concepts the project involved. Another thing that i think could use work is my planning and conducting as even though I had the entirety of winter break I still put out an underdeveloped project that I think could have been a lot better.
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