Roll The Dice!

This week in my Algebra 1 class (with freshman), I was teaching powers and exponents. On the first day, I introduced the topic and we went through the main concepts and important information dealing with the topic. On the next day, we practiced problems as a class based on powers and exponents followed by independent practice. The following day, I decided to change it up a bit. Since the students had been working with pencil and paper all week, I decided to add a little fun into the way they were practicing completing powers and exponents problems.

In order to do so, I began by putting the students into 2 groups (one of 2 people and one with 3). Next, I handed out a chart to each student and 2 di to each group. As the chart explained, the students were to roll the first di once to determine the base number and record it. Next, they were to roll 2 di to determine the exponent and record it. In the next two columns, the students had to write out the complete number formed and the multiplication represented by the exponent. It is also important to note that the students were not rolling for themselves. To keep each of the group members actively involved and enforce cooperative learning, I had the students take turns rolling the numbers for one another.

I was apprehensive at first because I did not know how the students would react to an activity like this, but was happily surprised when each student was actively involved. I was happy to see this because the students often get restless when they are constantly doing practice work with pencil and paper. I plan to use this lesson for multiple concepts in the future!