Parsons High School mathematics teacher Janelle Houk believes math can be fun for students, even those in the hardest classes.
One example was the shape auction held in her honors classes Tuesday morning.
Last week, students spent time learning about quadrilaterals and triangles, and their various traits and characteristics.
For those whom it has been a day or two since their last math class, a quadrilateral is a polygon having four sides, four angles and four vertices. They consist of shapes like squares, rectangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, and parallelograms. Triangles are also polygons, and include equilateral, isosceles, right angled and scalene.
Students were then asked to chart the characteristics of the quadrilaterals and triangles. Each characteristic was equated to set number of points. Based on that point system, students were asked to determine what point value various shapes had.
Houk said rather than teaching the honors students all the characteristics, they were required to teach themselves how the shapes compared.
Tuesday, the students were to pull out their charts and $1,000 in play money. They were asked to devise a strategy., as they were required to bid on shapes they thought would add up to the most points based on their point value assessments. Bidding went in $50 increments and at times got pretty crazy as students vied to acquire the shapes they thought were the most valuable.
The hardest thing for students to figure was how much money to bid for one shape they wanted so it would leave them enough money to competitively bid for another and not be easily outbid.
One shape went for $650.
It was only after the auction was over that Houk shared with the students the actual point values of the shapes and shared who won based on the shapes they purchased.
Only one group in her second hour class had gotten the point value correct on their assessment, but unfortunately the two shapes they were able to purchase did not reach the highest point value.
“It’s a lot of excitement,” Houk said. “I have a lot of fun doing this each year and they do too.”