Friday, January 9, 2009

7 times 13 is 28


I guess many people may have seen this. I'm sure it could have a place in a numeracy class, and I'm quite enjoying thinking of the ways that might work: Why can't it work? Why is the answer not sensible? Estimate what a sensible answer might be. Let's compare it with the ways we have discussed doing these things. Is it right to check the answer? How does place value fit in? There's a lot you can do with it.

I used to hate Abbott and Costello when I was a teenager and they were all over TV and film shows. However I find this convincing and their timing is great.

You can find the video here at Teacher Tube, and you may find the comments helpful. There's another similar clip here.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay for Abbott and Costello! I love this stuff. At this year's Christmas party we had a reading of "Who's On First" (great example of low-level, high interest).

And, yes, I agree it's always useful to talk 'about' math. Thks for the post - I'm using this video today.

January 12, 2009 at 4:46:00 PM GMT
Chris Jackson said...

Glad you're planning to use it. Please feed back about how it went. Chris

January 12, 2009 at 9:30:00 PM GMT
Anonymous said...

I showed both videos.

Learners with strong math skills laughed and enjoyed them. (They found Ma & Pa Kettle's version funnier) What they talked about most was way they wrote out the long division: 4)12( We had a bit of conversation about how math conventions change over time.

Learners with weaker math skills did Not enjoy the videos. I think they felt it was just one more instance of math being confusing and unreliable. They didn't even want to talk about the videos.

I only had one learner - who is a real learner - who sat down with pencil and paper to sort out what was happening. "They forgot about the 10s, and treated everything like the 1s" she said, quite correctly.

January 15, 2009 at 3:28:00 PM GMT

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