Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 19, 1993 TAG: 9310200290
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The prealgebra students at Blacksburg Middle School put on their thinking caps last week.
Literally.
Annie Chalmers wore an ice cube tray on her head, held on with a lacy ribbon and a big bow under her chin. Shiny marbles, labeled with numbers, rolled around in each ice cube compartment as she walked carefully, balancing.
Atop his bicycle helmet Joel Conn had a foam-board replica of a computer, made to actual size. Each key had been carefully cut and pasted to the keyboard - exactly the same as the real thing.
Jesse Talton sported a top hat made of poster board and covered with measuring spoons, protractors, a compass, calculator, thermometer and other tools of measurement. Two rulers hung from each side of the hat, as if to protect his ears.
Prealgebra teacher Colleen Prosser was trying to make math fun for her seventh-graders at Blacksburg Middle School when she challenged her students to ``create a thinking cap which demonstrates a math concept or theory.''
She was surprised at the results.
``They put much more thought into it than I ever thought they would,'' she said. ``I was very pleased.''
Prosser gave her students four weeks to create the thinking caps, limiting the rules.
``They had to demonstrate a math concept,'' she said. ``
They could use a real hat as a base, but had to add on to it.
``And they couldn't use any of the examples I had given them in class.''
Prosser said all she remembers of her school days is ``book and paper, book and paper,'' and she wanted her students to have some fun.
``They might not remember anything else about this class,'' she said. ``But they'll always remember the hats.''
The project allows all students to become involved, a concept that is growing in most modern-day classrooms.
``We [Blacksburg Middle School] are totally inclusive,'' Prosser said, meaning all students can participate in any given assignment, regardless of that student's learning capabilities.
``I was trying to do something fun, and something that everyone could do,'' she said.
``She's a creative teacher,'' 12- year old Talton said. ``The most fun thing I ever did in math was to write a two-page paper on what math was.''
Once the idea for his project was born, Talton said it only took him a day and a half to complete.
``I was wondering what I could do and thought a calculator is used in math and that is a measurement of numbers,'' he said, ``and then I thought there are other things that measure, too.''
Chalmers, 12, was looking for a play on words when she designed an ice-cube tray hat which demonstrated the mathematical concept of cubing.
``I call it the cuber,'' she said of her blue ice tray, covered with imitation gemstones and glittered paint. ``It's a game and a hat at the same time.'' At the bottom of each individual ice cube compartment is a painted number that represents the cube of the number on a given marble. The trick is to match the marble with the correct answer.
``I liked making the hat,'' Chalmers said. ``[Prosser] explains stuff so you know it and you understand better because you do the projects on your own.''
``She makes math fun so you want to do it,'' 12-year old Joel Conn said.
``With other things like homework and writing papers, it takes you longer to do because you want to keep putting it off because it's boring.''
Conn wore a life-sized replica of a computer on his head,
demonstrating different equations and showing various math theorems like Einstein's theory (e = mc2) and the Pythagorean theorem (c2 = a2 + b2).
``Yeah, and when I presented my hat, I asked the class if they knew just how many keys there are on a computer, and there are 101,'' he said. ``I didn't realize that until I started cutting them all out.''
by CNB