Sunday, April 28, 2013

Math vs Sports Practice

I first read about this on Fawn's blog:  Fawn Nguyen's Blog in response to Dan Meyer's response to Sal Khan's post about math practice vs wrestling.  She did a little survey, so I did a little survey.  I surveyed my Accelerated Algebra I class (freshmen) and my Honors Algebra II classes (sophomores).

Here is what happened:


Some of their explanations included:
 Girls who picked math:

  • Math is year round
  • I am not good at sports, so I will pick math
  • Math is easier
  • I love repetition
Boys who picked math:
  • School comes before sports
  • I am not athletic, so math
  • I want to be successful and I know I will need math
Girls who picked sports:
  • Math is too repetitive
  • Sports are interactive and interesting
  • You can work towards results you can see
  • Sports is doing, math is thinking
Boys who picked sports:
  • Sports are social 
  • Sports are more fun.  
  • You are outside, active, healthy.
  • I rather do hard physical vs hard mental exercising (from a freshman)
  • I feel pressure at math but at sports I can be me
NOTE:  I will try to get kids more active.  Now, how to do it.


1 comment:

  1. I did not read the original article, mentioned in the chain of citations, but your sports/math project provides an interesting way to show, in colorful graphic detail, the results of a student opinion poll that are personally relevant to their lives. An authentic use for statistics!

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