Friday, March 23, 2012

Week 11 - Concept Mapping

Below is brainstorming behind what I feel is a lost art in coaching the game of basketball. This would be something an educator could use in the classroom to share ideas among teams and individuals no matter what the subject. This specific map could end up being massive, but I decided to cut a lot of the decision making out to get the general concept across.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Week 8 - Road Trip Lesson Plan


When looking at a map, I always think about traveling. It may be related to me traveling as a child when my father was in the military. My family lived in 7 different places until I was in the 5th grade, so using a map was very common while traveling. We did not have the GPS back in the 80s and 90s. My lesson plan could be used in many different types of classrooms. The classes that could use this lesson plan would be a mathematics class, geography class, accounting class, or even a computer class just to name a few. I am coming from the mathematics class perspective. Below is a short description of the lesson plan.

Road Trip!
Each group will consist of 2 students that have been given 2 weeks off from school. This road trip will consist of the 2 person team ending up in one place, but within the two weeks, they must visit at least 3 different places. These destinations can include visits to family, site-seeing, or simply a place both people want to visit and spend time. The mathematical totals the group must come up with are hotel costs in specific cities they will spend the night in, gas prices based on minimum mileage, food expenses, and miscellaneous expenses that may arise. Each group will also be required to create an emergency fund in case something happens to their vehicle along the way. The first part of the lesson is for the group to estimate without looking up prices on the internet how much money they will need for everything. The second part of the lesson requires them to map out their journey. The third part of the lesson requires them to calculate their trip (one way) including everything except their emergency fund. The students will turn in their map with locations and distances between locations, calculations for their budget, and an excel spreadsheet on their estimated costs along with a summary of their trip and complications while calculating.

This lesson will be a tool for students to understand cost efficient ways to travel with a vehicle. They will be given per-determined gas prices ($3.00 per gallon) for the trip along with a consistent car with highway mileage rates (25 mpg).

You can find my map of my road trip by clicking here.