The BuzzMath Blog

Multiplying and dividing one-step inequalities does not seem to pose too many problems for students. That is until they encounter a problem that requires them to multiply or divide by a negative number. This is where simply teaching algorithms will mystify a student. If we teach a student that when we multiply or divide each side of an inequality by a negative number we just reverse the inequality sign and do not explain why, they become baffled by the concept. In the activity Solving and Graphing One-Step Inequalities with Multiplication and Division students will explore why an inequality sign is reversed when each side is divided or multiplied by a negative number.

Students are provided with numerous practice problems in this activity. These practice problems require students to not only solve inequalities, but also graph the solutions on a number line, and identify the inequality on a coordinate grid. If there is any truth in the saying “practice makes perfect”, this activity will prepare students for solving and graphing inequality perfection.

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Now subscribed schools can easily manage their subscriptions.  With MySchool, teachers and administrators can add, remove, and reassign students to different classes. They also have the ability to create and delete classes, add teachers, print activation codes and view the number of available seats for their entire school. Access Manage My School on BuzzMath.com/MySchool or click on the MY SCHOOL button from your BuzzMath homepage.

To learn more, visit our MySchool help page on:

http://buzzmath-help.scolab.com/interface-guide/my-classes/my-school

Common Core 6th Grade (6.EE5, 6.EE.6, 6.EE.8)

If the solution to x + 3 = 8 is x = 5, then what is the solution to x + 3 > 8? In the activity, Solving and Graphing One-Step Inequalities with Addition and Subtraction students will explore the difference between equations and inequalities before they move on to solving inequalities and graphing the solutions.

Students will solve inequalities and have the opportunity to visually see the solution represented on a number line and a coordinate grid. They will be introduced to the significance of closed and open circles and shaded portions on the number line as they graph their own solutions. As they progress through the activity they will develop an understanding that solutions to inequalities include multiple values, while solutions to equations contain a specific value.

At the culmination of this activity, students will use inequalities to solve word problems. This will allow them to develop an understanding of when they would ever need to use the concept of inequalities outside of the classroom.

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Two points walk into a bar just to drop me a line. OK, so maybe the joke isn’t that funny, but you get the point! Graphing Linear Equations allows students to use their prior knowledge of equations and coordinate points to graph linear equations on a grid. Students begin by randomly selecting x values, finding the corresponding y values, plotting the points and connecting them with a line.

Students are then introduced to graphing linear equations using the x- and  y-intercepts and then the slope and y-intercept. Throughout this activity, students will plot points on interactive coordinate grids to see the formation of lines based on linear equations. This activity concludes by having the students graph a parabola and compare the graph and equation to that of a line.

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During midterms some students may fill their backpacks with notebooks and textbooks in an attempt to cram for each test. While this may not be the best test preparation strategy, it does have the students making statements such as, “This backpack weighs a ton.” Is a backpack a good benchmark for measuring a ton? Of course not! This statement is an obvious exaggeration, but it leaves you thinking if they can actually conceptualize the meaning of a ton. Converting Customary Units of Mass and Capacity begins by having students match customary units of mass to benchmark items and measuring tools. Students then have the opportunity to use a balance scale to discover the ounce to pound relationship.

Students will also explore ounce to ton and pound to ton conversions before moving on to cup, pint, quart, gallon conversions. Students will practice these conversions as they solve questions involving matching, text input, and ordering. These different solution inputs are designed to keep the attention of each student as they progress through each activity.

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Common Core - Grade 6 (6.EE.2)

Introduction to Writing Algebraic Expressions may be as close as some middle school students come to cracking secret codes. There is a certain intrigue to representing an entire sentence as 4 simple symbols. In the activity, Introduction to Writing Algebraic Expressions, students will begin by reviewing the meaning of a variable. Is there a difference between a question mark and the letter n to represent a missing value? Students will have the opportunity to make these connections as they progress through the beginning of this activity.

Students will then combine their knowledge of variables and operations to form algebraic expressions. They will match phrases to algebraic expressions, write algebraic expressions to represent written phrases, and represent real life situations as algebraic expressions. This activity provides students with a great introduction to writing algebraic expressions that they will use to solve numerous mathematics problems in the future.

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Common Core - Grade 7 (7.G.4)

Students, for the most part, seem to have very little trouble finding the area of basic quadrilaterals. Then we throw in a Greek symbol and ask them to find the area of a circle and it gets a little more tricky. Introduction to Area of a Circle, shows students the connection between finding the area of a parallelogram and finding the area of a circle. 

A brief animation on page 3, shows how sectors of a circle can be transformed into the shape of a parallelogram. The activity then proceeds to walk students through the concept of using the formula for finding the area of a parallelogram and the characteristics of a circle that they already know to find the area of a circle.

As students progress through this activity they are provided with many opportunities to practice finding the area of a circle. This activity provides an introduction to this concept. For a follow up to this activity, check out Area of Circles.

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Let’s start at the core

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.- Common Core State Standards Initiative

Teachers, students, administrators, and parents can now view the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) alignment of all of the BuzzMath content. Each practice document is listed under the appropriate grade level and standard. This is a great resource to aid in a students’ mathematical success as addressed in the CCSS.

Better text-to-speech inside our problems

With this release comes many improvements that will make the BuzzMath text-to-speech experience a lot better. Fractions and math symbols are now read correctly and individual words are highlighted while a paragraph is being read.

Why not try it yourself?

After returning from the hills of San Francisco, we are proud to announce that BuzzMath was one of the winners of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Digital Media and Learning Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition.

The Competition supports the building of digital badge systems and explores the ways badges can be used to help people learn, demonstrate skills and knowledge, and unlock job, educational and civic opportunities.

The winners were announced on the first evening of the Digital Media and Learning Conference in San Francisco. As our team sat amongst finalists from 91 teams in the ballroom at the Parc 55 hotel, our fingers were crossed as we listened for “BuzzMath” to emerge from the sound system. In the moments before the announcement, we couldn’t help but reflect on the events leading up to this moment. Over the past months the BuzzMath team has worked tirelessly on the concept for an implementation of a badge system. We have written proposals, created graphics, and enhanced designs, to create a system that would benefit our students. Other organizations in the winners circle included Disney-Pixar, NASA, and UK based RADIOWAVES and digitalME.

So, what now? Winners of this competition will now be participants in a badges for lifelong learning experiment. Badges are simple, visible representation of accomplishment that can be earned through a variety of formal and informal learning environments. The winning organizations each received funding to design and implement a digital badge system over the course of a year, that will have value for their users inside and outside of their organization. Mozilla is in the process of developing an open source platform that will offer a “digital badge backpack” for learners to collect and display their badge credentials from youth through adulthood.

We anticipate the addition of many useful features to BuzzMath as the result of the implementation of a digital badge system. We will provide authentic assessments by adding challenge activities, acknowledge students’ mathematical knowledge, skills, and behaviors with personal badges, and provide students with new privileges and opportunities as they master concepts and demonstrate behaviors that lead to mathematical success.

Out of the mouths of our fellow competition winners from RADIOWAVES and digitalME, Cheers to a great year!

Read the official Press Release.

Read our Stage I Proposal and Stage II Proposal.

UPDATE Feb. 13th: We have modified the system. See the What are Stars? help page.

As you may have already noticed, we have made some pretty exciting changes to BuzzMath. As a result of a release of our new version there is now an easy-to-navigate topics view, three common core aligned grade specific books, and … some unanticipated glitches with our star system. While some bugs were fixed almost immediately after they were brought to our attention, there are some changes to the system that will take a little longer to resolve.

Teachers expressed their concerns. One teacher wrote:

“Then the system changed and the original five topics were gone so then the flood of questions came as to what categories they were supposed to get their stars in and what topics they should use, etc. This may not seem like a big deal, but I have 70+ students and another teacher has over 100.”

I personally apologize to the hard working teachers who are left to explain these changes to students and parents. We are currently exploring better ways to make the transition smoother for future releases.

When we realigned our content and separated it into 3 grade level books, the current star system design became a little more complicated and caused confusion for some users. Teachers used the old version of the student report to count stars to represent the progress of students from week to week.

With the new version of the report, they expressed concerns because the number of stars was not adding up correctly. The reason for this is: 

• One BuzzMath Activity can be in more than one grade level book or more than one topic in the same book. Therefore, upon successful completion of that assignment a gold star will appear in all books or topics that contain that assignment. The NCTM Middle School book is not the sum of the three Common Core books.
• In some cases the Individual Student Reports can have duplicate stars (Screenshot). The intention of this report is to show the specific assignments that students have attempted and completed each week. If a student completes an assignment in week 1 and then reopens that same document in week 2, two stars will appear.

Recent Updates:

• For Teachers: An All Topics View has been added to the Class Stars Report. The All Topics View will allow you to see the total number of stars each student has earned. In this report one star equals one successfully completed activity.
• For Students: A star icon has been added to the top bar of all student accounts. This star contains a number that represents how many total stars a student has earned.
• For All users: A “What are Stars?” section has been added to BuzzMath Help. This section explains the definition and use of stars for both teachers and students. To access this section, students can simply click on the star icon located in the top bar of their account and teachers can select the Help link at the top right of their screen.

We love the feedback we have received since the release of the new version of BuzzMath. We are currently working on clarifying the star system, adding challenges and a virtual badge system, and enabling you to use more data in a useful way.

Carl Malartre
President, BuzzMath.com

We are excited to announce that we have entered a distribution partnership with Sunburst Digital. Sunburst continues an inspired tradition of supporting curriculum and instruction by delivering digital content solutions targeting Common Core, state standards and local priorities that engage learners and integrate seamlessly with existing 21st century technology.

This partnership will allow us to offer schools across America an innovative math program that will change the way students practice math.

For more details, read the press release and visit http://buzzmath.sunburst.com.

What is (17+3) x 8/4 x 10 + 200? That is the number of free classes that have subscribed to BuzzMath since September! Are you still calculating? If so, that is 600 classes in 5 months!

There are classes in Guam that are completing missions, students in London that are accumulating stars, and teachers in New York City that are analyzing student reports. Have you taken advantage of this yet? If not, join the rest of the world and sign up for a free class!

We updated BuzzMath.com to Version 1.53 on January 31th, 2012.

Things are not so common here at BuzzMath, lately. The BuzzMath content is now aligned to the Common Core State Standards. With the launch of this new alignment there are also many new and exciting changes that are sure to enhance your teaching and learning experience.

3 New Grade Specific Books

Many teachers are going to be smiling when they log in to their BuzzMath homepage today and see three new books. Our current NCTM aligned Middle School book has been divided into three grade specific books. Each book contains grade specific content that is aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The NCTM aligned book will remain available and both teachers and students will have access to all books.

New Topics view

Once you open a new book, you will see the enhanced design of the Table of Contents in Topics View. Try it. Ooooh! Ahhhh! You will not only find it easier to find the content you are looking for, you will also be able to view pages of the document from the Table of Contents. This will be useful as you seek documents to assign to your class. From this view you will also be able to add documents to your Favorites, send an assignment, and view detailed results. Soon to follow will be the Standards View, for teachers.

New Class Stars Report by Topics

Data, data, data! Who doesn’t need more data? The new Class Stars Report by Topic allows you to see the number of stars, accuracy, and time spent in a useful way, per Topic.

Students Progression Pod

Students need useful data too. They will now see that their progression pod has been adapted to the Topics view. A topic will become visible once they have accumulated one star.

CC Alignment: 8th Grade (8.F.3) Relations, Functions, and Coordinate Graphs

NCTM: Algebra > Equations > Graphing Equations

It is safe to say that y = 2x + 6 is an equation of a line because it is in slope-intercept form. What about 2x = 6 - b? Is this an equation of a line? Is it in slope-intercept form? What is slope-intercept form? What is slope? What is an intercept? The introductory document, Equation of a Line in y = mx + b form, will answer all of the previously stated questions. This document begins by asking students to find the slopes and intercepts of 2 lines. Once they have identified the slopes and intercepts they will then compare their findings to the written equation of each line. This comparison will lead students to the discovery of the representation of the variables m and b in the equation y = mx + b.

Once students understand the meaning of each variable in the equation of a line, they will be presented with numerous opportunities to practice identifying lines, graphing lines based on written equations, and writing equations of lines. Upon successful completion of this document, students will have a firm understanding of equations of a line in y = mx + b form.

Try it now on BuzzMath >

(Measurement > Measurement Systems > Conversions)

While most students possess the background knowledge of the decimal system, they seem to struggle with the conversion of metric units. Is it the calculation or the concept of liter, meter, and gram that pose a problem for students? The document, Convert Metric Units of Length, Mass, and Capacity, provides students with practice of both the calculation and the concept of converting metric units. This document begins with benchmark objects that students can relate each unit of measure to. Once students learn that a raisin is about 1 gram, they begin to understand the concept of gram.

As students progress through the document they enhance their understanding of base metric units by exploring equivalent measurements as prefixes are added. They then apply basic concepts of operations with decimals to convert various units of measurements. This document concludes with challenging students to convert units as they attempt to compare different metric units.

Want more? Try it now >