Game in Calculus

So today I played a game with my Calculus class. I think it went well, but I am wondering how to improve on it. I am hoping writing about it will help me think about improvements. 

So we had just finished talking about continuous functions. So the game was called Is it Continuous? 

The rules were these:

1. Two people per team

2. Keep track of points on whiteboard (each student has a small whiteboard)

3. One point for the correct answer

4. One point for each correct complete sentence used to explain your reasoning.

5. Points subtracted for speaking in Chinese

6. Points subtracted for not working as a team

7. Team who is first to lift their whiteboard will be called on first.

8. If the team that answers first has a correct answer, but an incorrect reasoning then another team has a chance at getting points. (This means teams have to listen to the answer and make sure they are ready with their answer as needed)

I had several questions with functions on an interval. So they had to decide if the function was continuous on the function. I think it went well. I had one team that kept being the first one to answer. They still weren't talking as much as I would have liked in their teams. It turned out that one team member would graph and the other would write on the white board. Then only one student from the team would speak. I need to find a way to get all of the students speaking. I wonder if next time I will make the other team member answer if the same team member has been answering each time.

The question that I really liked that got students thinking and speaking more was a problem that asked which of these real world situations represents a continuous function. I wish I could find more problems like that. 

I received two textbooks from the AP conference and I pulled the problems from them. I have been really enjoying one textbook because it has some really challenging questions. I know that my students want to be challenged so I have been pulling from that book a lot. I wanted to get a solutions manual for it for free from the publishers, but this book is not printed in China. I don't get what is troublesome or eye opening about a Calculus textbook. The only thing I can think is that they don't want population problems on finding Chinese population. 

The students really wanted to play the game and get points because the winning team received moon cakes. I got a large basket of moon cakes from the principal for the mid autumn festival. I knew I couldn't eat all of them by myself so I am giving some of them away to my classes. However I am saving some for myself. I had a few moon cakes before the festival and when I was in Beijing I was given moon cakes. I came back to the basket my principal gave me. I have not had that many yet so I am not sick of them yet. Plus now that mid autumn festival is over I won't be able to find them anywhere. 

So I am hoping the game goes better later today and tomorrow. I hope that with each time I play it I can think of a way to improve it so that all the students are speaking in English about why the function is continuous. If you would like to see the questions I used you can e-mail me at plattyl@gmail.com. 

I will keep you guys updated on other fun or interesting things that I do in my classroom.