Posted on 09/08/2010 11:17:29 AM PDT by DFG
For the next 17 weeks, Durham's sixth-graders are playing fantasy football, the wildly popular game that has millions of participants nationwide. Most who play do so for bragging rights among their peers and the chance to win a few bucks.
But these students are playing in teacher Lance Mangham's math class.
It's a trend that is reaching classrooms across the country as teachers search for lessons that go beyond traditional textbooks and worksheets to tap students' interests.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
I have found that the best way to teach fractions is to either teach woodworking or to teach sewing.
Interesting....not only Fantasy Football is a way to introduce math....it is a great introductory course in management even at a grade school level
Making recipes is good too. You get to use 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 cup measuring cups.
Biologist and mathematician Stephen Jay Gould used baseball
to teach his theories on probabilities and statistics.
It sounds like a good way to get children hooked on gambling to me.
Interesting use of math!
Teaching kids about the stock market is a great tool as well.
You have to convert those 1/16ths fraction prices of stocks into decimals.
And kids like investing in companies with which they are familiar, and corporations suddenly aren’t the evil rich once that company makes money for your portfolio.
Funny you should mention that ...
Back in the early Stone Age when I was in junior high, my economics teacher gave us a semester assignment: with "$5000", we were to "purchase" stocks .. whatever stocks we wanted .. using our hometown newspaper stock reports, and keep track of our gains and losses, additional purchases, sales, etc, for the semester.
I bought three stocks originally, Anaconda Copper was one, but I can't remember the other two. Over the semester, I bought and sold stocks, but held onto the Anaconda Copper stocks and increased my holdings there.
By the end of the semester, I was the only one who turned in the assignment (probably the only one, including the teacher, who even remembered the assignment). My tabulations filled two spiral accounting notebooks and my profit for the semester was over $50,000.
Man, I wish that money had been real.
Oh, and I got an A in the course, mainly for all of that "extra credit".
Funny you should mention that ...
Back in the early Stone Age when I was in junior high, my economics teacher gave us a semester assignment: with "$5000", we were to "purchase" stocks .. whatever stocks we wanted .. using our hometown newspaper stock reports, and keep track of our gains and losses, additional purchases, sales, etc, for the semester. I remember making a table of the decimal results of 1/16 value-ticks in the stocks.
I bought three stocks originally, Anaconda Copper was one, but I can't remember the other two. Over the semester, I bought and sold stocks, but held onto the Anaconda Copper stocks and increased my holdings there.
By the end of the semester, I was the only one who turned in the assignment (probably the only one, including the teacher, who even remembered the assignment). My tabulations filled two spiral accounting notebooks and my profit for the semester was over $50,000.
Man, I wish that money had been real.
Oh, and I got an A in the course, mainly for all of that "extra credit".
Ooops -— hang-fire ...
Stocks aren’t priced in fractions anymore. Changed to dollars and cents a while back.
Wow $50,000 PROFIT just during the school year ???
Have you ever figured out how much you’d have today if you had held onto the Anaconda stock over the years ?
Did that experience make you buy some green eyeshades and put out a shingle on Wall Street with your newfound respect for corporate America ?
Ok , guess instead of learning fractions from the stock market, we could teach kids to buy gold in pieces of eight.
Have them convert ounces to milligrams.
Probably a better investment idea anyways.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.