Maida, P., & Maida, M. (January 2006). How does your doughnut measure up?. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 11 (5), 212-219.
This article was about a middle school teacher who used doughnuts to apply math to real life. The students were asked to estimate the volume of the doughnut by approximating the volume of a cylinder minus the volume of a smaller cylinder from the center. This was a good introduction to calculus and finding exact volumes of different shapes. The children were more interested in the math because it was more hands-on. Each student got their own doughnut and needed to take the measurements themselves. The purpose of the activity to teach the students how to estimate using math and also how to incorporate math into real life situations.
I thought this article was really interesting and I think as a student I would enjoy using math more creatively by doing hands-on activities. It seemed like the students understood what they were doing in relating something they knew how to take the volume of to something more obscurely shaped. The only problem I saw with this activity was the germ factor. I bet it was really unsanitary having students touch all of these doughnuts with different rulers and such.
This article sounds really interesting! Great topic sentence. You did a great job summarizing the article. I feel like I understand what the article was about. You communicated the author's ideas very clearly. I am just left wondering how old the middle school students were. I wonder if this could be applied to high school students as well. Awesome post!
ReplyDeleteI think your topic sentence was great because it told me exactly what you were going to tell us about the article. You supported that topic sentence by giving reasons this activity related math to real life so I say overall good job. The only suggestion I would add that could strengthen your already strong topic sentence is if you were to say what kind of math they were applying to real life.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Haley
Bibliography feedback: remove "January"; no period after the question mark; italicize the title of the journal; italicize 11; no space between 11 and (5).
ReplyDeleteI thought that the opening sentence for the first paragraph, which I thought was the topic sentence, did not capture the main idea of the article. I felt this way because the rest of the article was not about the teacher who taught using donuts. It was about so much more than that. I liked the rich description in this paragraph, though, about what the students were doing in the activity. It helped me understand what the teacher might have been trying to accomplish by engaging the students in this task.
I'm not sure that the second paragraph had a topic sentence. While you are certainly discussing different aspects of the paper, I don't see how you are constructing a coherent stance toward the main idea and supporting it with evidence. Perhaps part of the problem with this paragraph is that you did not clearly identify the main point of this paper in the previous paragraph, and so it wasn't possible to take a particular stance toward the main idea.
I think you did a good job summarizing the doughnut paper. I read the same paper! So I think you did well in saying what it was about.
ReplyDeleteI am still not sure though why in the world a kid would care about the volume on a doughnut.
I mean you would have to know volumes and understand calculus to perhaps build a ship if you are an engineer or something like that, but overall a doughnut, dang man, I would just want to eat it, who cares about the volume.
Overal good job though.