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