Change the Channel

Yeah! The K-8 geometry video is ready for release! The students did a great job getting footage, and had lots of creative ideas that used their talents. I hope you enjoy it!  (The students would love it if you share the link.)

The video started back at the midsemester when students at our school were making a lipdub.  During my class.  "Can we go?" (GVSU lipdub - came out pretty well.)

"Not now - you had to be involved before."

"What's a lipdub?"

So I showed them what I consider the classic of the genre, Shorewood High School's reverse lipdub.  We were just starting our unit on teaching (following doing, preceding learning).  So we talked about how many teachers find it hard to get students to do any work, and yet here's a whole school working their butts off to make a video.  They had a great discussion about it, bringing up choice, student interest, engagement and other factors.  Then... "can we make one?"

Any reasonably bright teacher would have seen that coming, but not me.  "I'll think about it."

Starting our last unit, I brought it up.  If we're going to do it, it's time.  Discussion led them to believe that the reverse lipdub was right out, followed shortly by a lipdub.  Some students were really into the idea, most were in favor, and a few were dead against it.  There's a fair number of choice workshops in my courses, and I said most of the prep work would be choice.  They wouldn't be graded on the success or not.  The class voted on it with most in favor.  I started freaking out.  It was worth doing to me because:

• Student interest was high, 
• The idea of how to capture and communicate math is relevant to a math ed class,
• By the end of the semester it could be connected to review, and
• The preservice teachers wanted to be able to show it to their students to answer why they should be engaged.

But as the last couple weeks went by, only a few students were contributing.  (We had a google doc for students to add their ideas and development to.) My freak out got freakier.  Was it even going to be worth trying?  Part of this was also I wanted them to see a teacher giving something a go, taking a risk.  That's better if I'm uncomfortable, right?

We used our last class period to do the filming.  One of the cameras failed completely.  I just wheeled in all the manipulatives with which they had had the most fun.  Objective: get some good footage.

One student had written the Math, Math, Baby rap, and found someone to rap, so they started choreographing it.  Other students got building and drawing.  One student had come up with an I Love Charts style demonstration (on Jeggings, which you can buy but she proves do not exist), and another was ready to demonstrate our amazing rubber band enlarger.  The atmosphere got charged and they really got into the spirit.  In hindsight, we should have gotten this footage earlier, and then students could film and add to it.  Ultimately I had to do the first pass editing, but it was inspiring to do it because they got such good footage.  The Geometry song came from me noticing that it would fit to Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song, the guitarist learning it in 5 minutes from youtube, and the singer coming up with the lyrics (with some crowdsourcing) on the spot.

Even if there was no video result, I would have been happy to see the students so engaged in making math visible and engaging.  But it's better with the video!

Resources: Jamendo was a great place to find cc 3.0 music, and I think the songs from Antony Raijekov (jazz) and Josh Woodward (pop/folk) really help make it. They're not math songs, but nobody's perfect.

Sing a Song for Making Sense

I'm always on the lookout for a good math song.  Partly because I like the idea of math songs for immersion, but also because I'm just a geek and like them.  Thought I'd share what I've got, and hope that people might add their 2 cents.  Please?  Links to youtube where available, amazon or another source if it's out there.  Of course, this is music on the internet, so beware of piracy and anti-piracy.

Best of the Best:
What About 10?  - Dino 5, hippest counting song ever.  Even made our family's dance mix.


Tom Lehrer:
Could go in best of the best, but instead he gets his own category.  Just heard he stopped performing because he went back to being a math teacher.  There's a new collection of his work that includes a DVD.  Sounds like a must buy.

New Math.  Greatest. Math. Song. Ever.

That's Mathematics.
Lobachevsky.
What the heck, Werner Von Braun.  (Actual video of Lehrer playing.)


Albums:
They Might Be Giants have a whole album of math songs, one song each for important numbers, including the counting numbers, pi and infinity.  (Infinity's not a number, I hear you say.  But it is a cardinality... go ask Cantor.)

Sesame Street:
Obviously a great source of number songs.  Televison Tunes has many of these available - check out his Sesame Street songs.  My favorites are the Alligator King (7), King of 8, the Pinball Song, and, for the man himself, Song of the Count.


Schoolhouse Rock:
Again, at Television Tunes.  My favorites:  I Got Six (That's all there is), Elementary (Animals coming off the ark in pairs), and the phenomenal Three is Magic Number.

Statistics:
Average Guy - Song of the Lakes (life is hard in the middle; way better than Joe Walsh's same named different song.)
Statistician's Blues -Todd Snider (adult humor, but funny)

Other:
Multiplication - Animaniacs, works through the standard algorithm for 47x83.  Which is somehow funny.
Shape of the Sum - I Love Math (no, really)
15 to 20 - Phenomenal Handclap Band (counting by 5s)
1234 - Feist
National Pi Day - TJ Zmina (to the tune of a Lehrer song; hence, better.)  Hat tip: Richard Zucker.
One Was Johnny - Carole King

Probably only math in my head:
Multiplication - Bobby Darin
Sdrawkcab Klat (Talk Backwards) - Steve Goodman, I use this to teach inverses and solving linear equations.
1234567 - 1000 Robota, German punk counting. I don't speak German, so apologies if it's offensive.
Seasons of Love - Rent.  (I had a student that knew this by heart and laughed when I asked them to find how many seconds in a year.)

Obligatory:
Math is a Wonderful Thing - Jack Black from the School of Rock
Math Sucks - Jimmy Buffet




Plea for help:  Denise at Let's Play Math! posted some calculus song videos, which combined with the new Tom Lehrer release that I heard about on Fresh Air  finally got me to do this post.  I haven't gotten too much into the homebrew stuff on YouTube.  If you have any suggestions for more math songs, please put it in the comments!  I especially love pop songs with accidental math.  I haven't used songs for memorizing ever, but I know some teachers love them.  Have you had a good experience with them?

Someone needs to make this song.  Also, the song I'm alluding to in the title seems ripe for a math version.  "Sing a song of making sense, pocketful of why, four and twenty problems, one of them with pi..."