Fractals, VNPS and VRG.

                     

One of the best things about teaching discrete math is that I get to do some pretty incredible mathematics with high school students. Think of it as a topics course from college, only on the high school level. We cover several pre-calculus topics, as well as number theory, graph theory, election theory, logic and counting. The last thing we are covering this semester is fractals and tessellations. (I saved the fun stuff for the tired days at the end!)

The classroom has been like a bee hive- in constant movement since we started the unit. Day one started with a brief lesson on fractals, their history, how fractals appear in nature and the Mandelbrot set. Day two put us to work constructing fractals using a clothesline math activity. This is an activity where a clothesline is used to help students sort and organize through the problem.

In our case, students were given the first two iterations of a fractal and had to order the rest on the clothesline. Students also created their own fractals for display on the clothesline. 

An interesting side note to the clothesline activity: My students were using the boards to help with the organization of their thoughts. We are used to seeing students work out math problems on the white boards, but this was actual writing down their thought processes!It was incredible!  This ties in seamlessly with what I have been reading about on Twitter. Classrooms using VNPS (vertical, non-permanent surfaces)  to assist students with their organization and thought processes. You can read more about that by searching the hashtag  #VNPS  on Twitter or by reading Peter Liljedahl's original research HERE.

We are currently completing our fractal unit with the construction of the Sierpinski pyramid. The next posting will cover that activity and how the use of Visually Random Groups influenced the conversations within the unit.