Property Advertisements — 7609

Summary

Don’t you hate when you get a slogan, jingle, or image stuck in your head because of a catchy advertisement? It can be irksome, but there’s no denying the effectiveness of well-crafted commercial message. The same method can be used to help remember mathematical concepts, like the properties of Real Numbers. Students created an advertisement of their choice (such as a catchy jingle, song, rap, slogan, cartoon, or skit) to help other students learn, remember, and better understand each group’s assigned properties. The “advertisements” were performed for the rest of the class, with peer evaluation.

TIPC Ratings

The students drove their research using informational resources to learn more about their topic. The students were given an open-ended task of planning and creating an end product that incorporated the synthesized information from their research, to address an authentic task of using advertising techniques to promote learning math properties.

Students used Google Drive resources to form groups, to collaborate within their groups as they developed their scripts, and to reflect on the quality of their project work. This included possible changes that they would make to the project and an overall assessment. Students were given the autonomy of choosing a digital tool to create a advertising project. The lesson plan and samples of student artifacts were shared with Byrd’s Math Department, HCPS Math Coaches, HCPS Mathematics Educational Specialist, other HCPS Math teachers, and on School Space and Byrd’s Library Blog.

Students were required to select an appropriate digital tool in order to make their project. Groups also had to think about how to solve problems when those tools did not work. Students had to think outside the box in order to create an advertisement that incorporated their two properties. They had to think about how they were going to present their math properties in a way that would be engaging and entertaining. Students had to reflect on their individual roles and their individual projects by answering questions on what they would have changed about their final advertisement.

This project is ideal, because the students synthesized their learning from their research and general knowledge to create an advertising learning product. Students chose their presentation format, shared them with the class. Time was allowed for personal and peer reflection of the creative process including how they would do the project differently in the future. Each group created purposeful, meaningful original work that was shared with others, above and beyond the assignment parameters. The products were diverse and unique.