The numbers don’t add up. Educators are spending hours in the classroom teaching students about mathematics. Yet 31% of 8th-grade students test below basic levels of achievement in math.
One reason why students don’t test well is that they don’t like math topics for high schoolers. You can call your students’ attention to your concepts by developing a math lesson plan that relates to them.
How should you describe formulas and use word problems? What sorts of activities can you give your students so they put formulas into practice? How can you keep students focused during these activities?
Answer these questions and you can help your students understand math in no time. Here is your quick guide.
Examine Everyday Objects
Trigonometry can seem abstract to many high school students. They may assume that they cannot apply the Pythagorean theorem and other concepts to their daily lives.
Whenever you are teaching high school mathematics, you should use everyday objects to describe your concepts. When you need to talk about triangles, you should talk about pizza slices.
An even better idea is to incorporate word problems into your high school lesson plans. These problems should relate to issues in your students’ lives. You can ask a student to use the formulas for the areas of rectangles and squares to determine how much carpeting they need in their room.
Run a Charity
You can conduct a poll of your students and ask them to select their favorite charity. This can help them learn about statistics.
Select the most popular charity and then ask each student to come up with ideas for fundraisers. They may want to run a garage sale, or they may want to perform music for money.
Whatever their ideas are, you should ask them to develop a budget. They have to use arithmetic to add up the costs of things and they must create equations for how much money they expect to earn.
You should then give them class time to organize their fundraisers and raise money. This lets them carry out mathematical concepts in a productive way. As a closing exercise, you can ask the students to write essays on what they learned and how they applied their concepts.
Plan for Disasters
If your students want something a little darker, you can ask them to plan for natural disasters. You should give them laptops and ask them to compute the costs of natural disasters in their area.
They should then create equations for the needs of their area. You can ask one group to focus on food while another focuses on shelter. Each group will prepare a report discussing their findings and running their calculations.
You should learn how to populate assignments with questions. Questions can create conversations and help your students stay focused. You can go around the room and ask questions to each group or to each student.
Develop a Great Math Lesson Plan
A good math lesson plan will bring math resources down to your students’ level. You should teach your students about formulas, but you should use terms that they understand. Compare geometric shapes to household objects and write word problems with real-life issues.
When you want to get your students moving, you can ask them to create a budget for fundraisers. You can also ask them to plan for natural disasters, which helps them develop formulas for things.
Keep your lesson plan up to date. Read more guides to teaching high schoolers by following our coverage.
