Success Stories

Illuminations' Latest Success

A Teacher in the Zone, Michael Weingarden Losing weight is a popular New Year’s resolution. Some people turn to exercise to help them achieve this goal, but one teacher wonders if it’s possible to keep this resolution while following a diet of fast food. Michael Weingarden, algebra teacher at Newbury Park High School and 2009 Illuminations Summer Institute participant, challenges his students to discover if it’s possible to follow the Zone Diet while only eating items from the McDonald's menu.  “Calorie counting can be confusing, because one gram of fat does not have the same number of calories as a gram of protein or carbohydrate,” said Weingarden. “When you look at the quantity of nutrients in food, the percentage of fat is not always obvious.” Weingarden created the lesson Big Math and Fries while participating in the 2009 Illuminations Summer Institute. The lesson was based on the successes he found in the book The Zone Diet. He was given the book as a gift and was drawn to the diet because of the math proportions it presented. “It’s definitely a popular lesson with my students, because of the real world applications,” said Weingarden. It’s not surprising that a former engineer and designer of the Rat Zapper, a humane rat trap, likes to bring applications into his classroom. Weingarden often draws on contemporary examples in his classroom by creating several lessons with everyday applications — including another lesson he developed at the summer institute, Too Hot to Handle. This lesson, which allows students to explore asymptotes and exponential decay while investigating how fast a hot liquid cools, will be posted later this year.

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Not Just for Math Teachers, Terry Johanson

Illuminations reaches a wide audience of math teachers, spanning from prekindergarten to high school and from teachers in the United States to those abroad, but now it's being used in science classrooms, too.

The Illuminations lesson, Varying Motion, created by Johnanson when she participated in the 2008 Illuminations Summer Institute, allowed Dyck’s students to explore simple and complex ideas with a hands-on approach.

“I found that my students ‘got it’,” said Dyck. “They came away from the lesson with a deep understanding of the relationships among displacement, velocity and acceleration throughout this hands-on inquiry. ”

Students were happy to have an out-of-the-desk activity that they could apply mathematical ideas to, and they liked the fact that the knowledge built on itself, progressing logically from simple to complex ideas.

Varying Motion also provided not just one day of instruction, but it progressed to more than seven hours of class experiences and was the springboard for approximately 90% of Dyck’s unit content.

“I will definitely continue to see what other Illuminations lessons fit my physics curriculum,” Dyck said. “The detailed lessons give me enough information so I can tailor it to fit my classroom needs. ”

As for Johanson, she will continue to encourage teachers to use Illuminations. She feels the lessons fit with the emphasis that specific school divisions, schools, and teachers have chosen.

Originally Appeared in Bright Ideas 11/12/09

Love at First Site, Victoria Miles

It has often been said that love happens when you least expect it, and now the same can be said for finding math resources. Victoria Miles, 7th grade math teacher at Abigail Adams Middle School, came upon Illuminations after a Google search directed her to the site.

“I was looking for an interactive tool to enhance instruction for volume of prisms. I did a Google search and found the Illumination Cubes applet,” said Miles.  

Miles strives to incorporate technology into her classroom whenever possible, and now regularly uses Illuminations tools to help actively engage her students. She also has created activity sheets to accompany student exploration for each Illuminations tool.

“My students are actively engaged when they work on applets. After students explore mathematics using technology, I have noticed more students participating in classroom discussion,” said Miles.

Miles brought her insights to the 2009 Illuminations Summer Institute in which she and several other exceptional teachers worked to develop new lessons for the site. Miles worked diligently to bring her tessellations tool from a dream to reality.

“I really wanted a tessellation tool that could do it all: copy, clone, and use shapes from polygons to dodecagons,” said Miles. “This new tessellations tool has everything I wanted for construction and exploration of the concept. ”

Students can now explore tessellations using the friendly, easy-to-use Tessellations Creator suggested by Miles and built by Illuminations. Moving forward, Miles hopes to incorporate new Illuminations lessons to help her students in areas where they may be struggling.  She will also continue to spread the love, as she works with colleagues, as they share ideas for bringing technology into their classrooms using Illuminations.

Originally Appeared in Bright Ideas 10/7/09

Binding Success, Cindy Stofferahn

Imagine having your whole year planned out before stepping foot in your classroom. Cindy Stofferahn, third grade teacher at Sturgis Elementary School in South Dakota, already knows what she is teaching today, tomorrow and for the rest of the year.

Stofferahn, with the assistance of another teacher, created a binder filled with Illuminations lessons from which she will teach throughout the school year. “I am confident the lessons I am teaching from are beneficial to student learning, because the lessons are inquiry-based and follow the standards I need to teach,” said Stofferahn.

Stofferahn has applied the lessons to promote student learning across grade levels, as first and third graders worked to complete the lesson As People Get Older, They Get Taller. Stofferahn and a fellow teacher brought their classes together in order to gather data and chart their results.

The teachers observed that student pairs helped one another throughout the lesson, and coming together allowed older students to actively engage younger students and deepen their learning. “Students were working in groups and supporting each other in their learning,” said Stofferahn. “They were openly discussing the lesson. ”

Moving forward, Stofferahn plans to continue to use Illuminations lessons that align with the South Dakota third‑grade standards. She encourages her colleagues to use Illuminations as well, because it can often times support the textbook material and — simply put — because it’s free.

Originally Appeared in Bright Ideas 9/9/09

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students. The views expressed or implied, unless otherwise noted, should not be interpreted as official positions of the Council.