MathCityMap celebrates the 20,000th task in the web portal! In the past weeks and months, you, dear users, have been active and created numerous interesting tasks in the web portal.
Our anniversary task was created by Jesica Sanchez Lagrange near Madrid and asks for the circumference of a rectangular information board. Click here to display this task.
We are looking forward to many more MathCityMap tasks!
We welcome our new MCM Reviewers from Indonesia! Together with our long-time MCM supporter Adi Nur Cahyono, the new mebers will review the tasks submitted for publication and help you make the tasks even better. We look forward to many new tasks from Indonesia!
*** Do you want to become a MCM Reviewer? ***
But it’s not just Indonesia we’re looking for new reviewers – the MathCityMap team is looking for reviewers for all languages and countries.
You also want to become a MCM reviewer? Great!
Send us an email to info[at]mathcitymap.eu and complete a small training program for reviewers. We are looking forward to you!
Ceren Kaya has created the 19,000 task on the MathCityMap Web Portal! As part of the seminar “New Media in Mathematics Education” at Frankfurt Goethe University, the use of MathCityMap in the classroom is of course also discussed.
For this purpose, the student teachers get to know the MathCityMap system from the learner’s point of view and work on a math trail of their choice. In addition, the use of our tool Digital Classroom is reflected upon (teachers’ perspective).
From the author’s perspective, the students create their own assignments. For this purpose, a picture of the monument of the Hassia spring in Bad Vilbel as well as the corresponding dimensions of the base were given. The student teacher Ceren Kaya then created the task “Mathematics with a magic hand”, in which the volume of the base is to be calculated.
We look forward to many more tasks on MathCityMap!
Dear users,
MathCityMap as a participatory project thrives on you using the existing tasks & mathtrails and creating your own tasks & trails. Today we would like to present you some numbers from the MathCityMap statistics:
We are already looking forward to welcoming many new members to the MCM community in 2021 and discovering new, exciting tasks all over the world.
Your MathCityMap Team Frankfurt
Dear users,
Another year is drawing to a close (this time probably a very turbulent one for all of us). Christmas is just around the corner. Time for us to take a brief look back at the past year:
Not only because of the Corona pandemic, but also caused by the presented further developments of our MCM system, the past year was exciting for us. However, the great development of the user numbers and tasks would not have been possible without your help and use of the platform. And so, despite all the changes, MathCityMap remains what it is: a digital system for school practice.
We wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2021. We are already looking forward to welcoming many new members to the MCM community and discovering new, exciting tasks all over the world. Stay healthy!
Your MathCityMap Team Frankfurt
The math teacher Fabienne Nykiel created the trail “A math trail for Markdorf!” together with her students. In the following, the teacher explains how the students of class 7c of the Markdorf educational center worked out the tasks.
How did finding & creating the tasks work with your class? Describe the process from the first idea to the finished trail.
A group of students designed a modeling task on triangular construction together with me in the centre of Markdorf. The teacher informed herself in advance which location might be suitable for a potential modeling task on a specific topic and led the group to this location.
At this location the modeling cycle was discussed again with the students in a didactically reduced form and it was then explained that this cycle is now run backwards (I have called this process of modeling “extended modeling”): In a single work phase the students explored the local situation and each of them thought about the potential possibilities of this location alone in order to design a possible modeling task for the specific topic. After this phase, each student presented his/her ideas. In the plenary session, the students used this as a basis for discussing and debating which idea was the most suitable, creative, individual and closest to reality, whereby several ideas could also be combined into one (‘Think-Pair-Share-Method’).
After the students had already had their goal and result in mind, they considered how they could achieve this goal in the world of mathematics, i.e. by mathematical work (estimating, measuring, calculating, constructing, …) and carried out their considerations simultaneously. In doing so, they filtered out the explicit hints that could later be given in the MathCityMap app. Each small group was fully motivated and enthusiastic. They all emphasized that it was a lot of fun to finally do something ‘useful’ with mathematics.
As a last step, the students formulated the task, the three hints and the final solution (with its range of solutions) in detail. I transferred this information to the web portal and created the individual tasks. At the end, all tasks were combined into a trail. As a project conclusion, the trail was run and worked through together on a school day. As far as the Corona regulation (again) allows it, the parallel classes also want to go through the trail.
What do you see as the advantages if the learners create the tasks themselves? What do you hope to achieve?
A big advantage that I have seen in this project was the improvement of the modeling competence of SuS, which has especially developed through “Advanced Modeling”. In addition, SuS also deals with the trained content competencies from a different perspective. Social skills are also trained, such as the ability to work in a team.
Therefore, I hope that I will not only be able to better train the modeling skills, but also a sustainability of the teaching content. I hope that SuS will not forget these mathematical contents and also the modeling skills.
A further advantage is the strengthening of the personality of SuS. They were all visibly proud of the fact that they designed the math trail themselves. The joy was even greater when they learned that the trail would be published and was nominated for the Math Trail of the Month.
Is there a task that you particularly like? If so, please describe it.
I think the task “A larger church clock for Markdorf” is very successful, because many skills are trained. On the one hand, it must be estimated that the gable is an equilateral triangle, whereupon the SuS must measure the width of the tower, which gives them the length of each side of the triangle. Only with this information can the SuS design the triangle on a sheet with a suitable scale and determine the center of the inscribed circle.
What I particularly like about this task is that it seems ‘unsolvable’ at first glance, because the gable is so far away and cannot be measured easily.
Melanie Schubert from Goethe University Frankfurt has created the task “The Dinosaur’s Suitcase” and reports in an interview about her experiences with MathCityMap.
Dear Melanie, how did you get to know MathCityMap project? How do you use MCM?
I got to know MCM while working at the Goethe University Frankfurt, where the system is developed. As part of our mathematical gifted students promotion program “Junge Mathe-Adler Frankfurt” I created the trail “Mathe-Adler Klasse 6” for SuS of the sixth grade as a kick-off event.
Describe your task. How can it be solved?
In my task the volume in liters of an oversized suitcase is to be determined. In front of the Senkenberg Museum in Frankfurt there is a large dinosaur figure with a suitcase standing in front of it. Within the task the SuS receive information about human suitcase sizes, if one would go on vacation for about 2 weeks. The SuS can calculate the volume of the suitcase by approximating the suitcase of the dinosaur as a cuboid and then convert the volume into dm³ to determine the number of liters. By specifying the liter sizes of our suitcases, the SuS have a possibility of self-control, in that the SuS can consider whether about 27 of our suitcases can fit into the suitcase of the dinosaur.
What didactic goals do you pursue through these tasks?
This task is intended to expand the spatial imagination, conversion skills, measuring skills and the competence of modeling.
Melis Yaren, mathematics teacher at the Carl-Zuckmayer Realschule in Nierstein, organized a “math day” for and with her 6th grade. At different stations, new perspectives on mathematics were opened up – MathCityMap was of course also used. Below Melis Yaren reports on the “Maths Day”.
What is the math day about? What did the students do here?
I organized a math day with my class 6b (only in the class association because of Corona). There were a total of 5 different math stations and in each station different math problems. The goal is that I offer the students different perspectives on math based on these stations. At the 1st station “MathCityMap” the students presented the tasks/route of MCM, which we had solved in the math class before in the schoolyard. In the math day they also found new tasks for the app in the school grounds. At the 2nd station “Learning math digitally” the students presented the digital apps and web tools that we have learned and practiced so far with the tablets in math class. At the 3rd station “Learning math playfully” we had math games, tangram, geo boards, dice and wheel of fortune experiments. At station no. 4 they solved and presented Fermi tasks. At the 5th station “Guessing” they prepared guessing tasks (with smarties, beans, chocolate sweets, etc.) for their classmates and teachers.
How was MathCityMap used for this?
The students of 6b solved the tasks in the math class outside and later presented them in the math day (on 10.11). The route “Carl Zuckmayer Realschule Plus” was published last year – I created it for my project group (click here for the report). The tasks “barbecue hut” and “sports field” were best suited for the kids.
How was the feedback of your students on the math day and especially on MathCityMap?
The students definitely enjoyed experiencing math on the math day from a different perspective. Especially the app MCM!! The suggestion came from the students: they wanted to find new tasks for MCM on school grounds, discover them themselves and create them digitally. Now you ask in every math lesson if we can go out and do math outside 🙂
Today we would like to introduce our new PDF trail guide, which can be used as a paper version in addition to the smartphone app: As usual, you will find the trail guide in the menu bar under the title picture of your chosen math trail. By clicking on the PDF symbol you have three options: Select the “Worksheet” option to download the new trail guide. There you will also find the standard version for the learners and the accompanying PDF for teachers.
In contrast to the standard version, the students receive a checkered paper for calculating. There is also space for entering the measurement results and a result field.
We wish you a lot of fun with the new PDF Trail Guide!
How can online and distance learning be organized in times of digital (university) teaching? In a GDM article, the MathCityMap team presented MCM@home as an idea for teaching mathematics during the corona pandemic.
What is MCM@home about?
As usual, MCM@home uses the two components of MathCityMap – the web portal and the app. While teachers create tasks in the web portal, students can edit them with the help of the MCM app. In doing so, they receive hints, feedback on the task and insight into a prepared sample solution. So far as usual.
But the task formats differ, of course: Now the tasks are no longer worked on on site at an interesting object outdoors, but solved from home. Consequently, all necessary information is provided in the task – or can be counted, estimated or measured on the basis of the task picture.
Why should I use MCM@home?
Many students complained about a (perceived) lack of personal feedback from the teachers during the corona lockdown. At the same time the teachers noticed that the technical equipment and the handling of technology are high barriers for the Distance Leanring. Both problems are addressed by MCM@home:
When using the Digital Classroom, teachers can view the progress of their students in real time (e-portfolio) and provide targeted feedback via chat. Of course, students can also use the chat to ask for specific help (see picture). Thus, MCM@home offers the possibility of synchronous online teaching.
Since only a smartphone is needed for MCM@home and almost all learners know how to use modern cell phones safely, technical barriers and problems are not to be expected.
Do MCM@home trails already exist?
We already presented a whole series of MCM@home trails in spring. You can find them here. Two examples of MCM@home-trails we would like to briefly outline here:
