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A Better Way to Learn Math

The Guaranteach Blog for Students, Parents, and Teachers

 

Guaranteach Virtual Schools in Snowmaggedon 2010!

by Michelle Bauer on Feb 20, 2010

 

 

After record breaking snowfalls, schools in the Mid-Atlantic began opening their doors again last Wednesday.

Luckily, schools that were using Guaranteach didn’t miss a beat, and their students came back to the classroom fully prepared!  Since GT students have access to Guaranteach at home as well as at school, throughout the blizzard students in Guaranteach Virtual Schools continued to watch reams of math videos on fractions, algebra, probability and more, all from the safety of their homes.

We just wanted to say congratulations to all of our virtual students for the great work that they did, collectively watching over 2,000 videos during Snowmaggedon 2010!  We would also like to send a special shout out to Southwest Academy, who just passed their 7,000th video this school year! Great work, guys!

 


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Practical Math: Stuffing a Closet

by Michelle Bauer on Mar 01, 2010

 

It happens to everyone eventually – the sudden demand to “clean up that bedroom or ELSE!” These are the times we're happy to have closets with closable doors. But how much will those closets really hold?

When figuring how much space is in a closet (and how much junk we can quickly fit in it), we're talking about space in three dimensions – length, width, and height. We're also putting three dimensional objects into the closet, so we need to figure out volumes – the volume of the closet itself and the volume of what we hope will fit in it...fast!
 
Let's assume we have a closet that is 36” long, 24” deep (wide) and 84” high. The interior space of this closet is in the shape of a rectangular prism, so the volume is simply length x width x height, or 36”x 24”x84”, for a total of 72576 cubic inches of volume.
 
To make things simple, let's also assume that we have to cram only one kind of item into our closet....dirty T-shirts, and lots of them. We roll each T-shirt into a tube. A medium-sized T-shirt rolled this way is in the shape of a right regular cylinder with dimensions of approximately 9” height and a radius of 1.5” (there are other ways of rolling T-shirts, of course). The volume formula for this shape is pi x radius2 x height, and using 3.14 for pi, this generates a volume of  approximately 64 inches3 per T-shirt.
 
This means that we could fit 72756 / 64, or nearly 1155, T-shirts in the closets WITHOUT crunching them together and getting them all wrinkled.
 
Happy cleaning!

 


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February Teacher of the Month

by Michelle Bauer on Mar 01, 2010

 

He's been a surfer, a pirate, an archaeologist and a constant reminder that math shouldn't be scary or boring. But he's really one of Guaranteach's most skilled, beloved and productive teachers. Meet Joe Baxter.

Joe Baxter is a Baltimore native with a degree in education and mathematics. He is also, in his own words, “a nut when it comes to teaching.” Other Guaranteach teachers agree.
 
“I remember coming into the office one day and seeing Joe hanging the vine he used in his 'Pitfall Harry' videos from the ceiling,” says fellow teacher Craig Coletta. “I found that after I had finished laughing, I had ideas for about 5 new videos of my own. Joe's creativity is infectious.”
 
There is a method to Joe's madness, though. “Math is only hard if you THINK it's hard,” he says. “That's why I remind younger learners that they shouldn't get scared or intimidated but take it easy. Older students can join in the silliness of my characters and pick up the math almost without realizing it. Some kids do best with a teacher who's not 'by the book.'”
 
With just over 1400 of his videos available at Guaranteach, those kids won't have to look too hard to find Joe.
 


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