“Under the M… the square root of 12”

On this blog, sometimes I share my thoughts about transforming math education. This is not one of those times.

Here, I’m using my blog as a digital filing cabinet.

One activity that my students enjoyed was MATHO (and its variations FACTO and TRIGO).

Have students select and place answers from the bottom of each column to fill up their MATHO cards. In some versions, I pulled prepared questions from a hat. In other versions, I translated answers to questions on the fly. For example, if I grabbed 2√3, I called out “Under the M… the square root of 12”. After a student shouts “MATHO!” ask potential winners to read aloud their numbers. (Remember to keep track of answers you have called.)

Nothing revolutionary here – just a fun way to review content.

Squares & Square Roots
Exponent Laws
Simplifying Radicals
Rational Exponents
Factoring Trinomials x^2+bx+c
Factoring Special Products
Trig Functions

By the way, if you are looking to read about changing things, please check out Sam Shah’s recent post, The Messiness of Trying Something New.

9 Replies to ““Under the M… the square root of 12””

  1. How did you show the students the questions? From my understanding, you just gave students that first bingo sheet and then called the questions out? So whoever answered the last question the quickest and got the rest of the questions correct won? Thanks

    1. I showed students the questions by calling them out and writing them on the board or placing the on the overhead projector. There is no “first bingo sheet.” Nor are there 30 different bingo sheets as that would be a pain in the ass; I let probability generate unique cards for me. Each bingo sheet is blank. Each student chooses answers from the bottom of the page to fill up each column. For example, in the first MATHO game above (Squares & Square Roots), I might write under the M, from top to bottom, 144, 100, 36, 64, 25 and you might write 9, 49, 900, 36, 81. This lessens the need for speed.

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