Maths lesson: The π number

I have to admit that maths has never been my favorite subject, especially in 1st  and 2^nd of Bachillerato. I think, that it’s because I found it too much abstract, like something that I’m never going to use for nothing in my life. A defender of this subject would claim that they are essential for the daily life, and I agree. So, the main problem is how have they been taught traditionally.   From my point of view, this subject should be especially taught in a manipulative way to relate the mathematical content with its applicability. However, we all know that normally teachers only focus on teach the arithmetic operations by following the textbook and the activities proposed on it.  So, I cannot understand how someone like me, who doesn’t want to study nothing related to maths in the future, can be motivated by learning derivatives and integrals, without knowing to what they are for.

So, when the maths teacher of 6^th grade of Primary School proposed me to give a math class, I knew that I was not going to follow the textbook to the letter. Then, I started to think how could I teach the concept of the π number, and how to use it to calculate the length of a circumference in a manipulative and active way. Fortunately, nowadays we can easily find a lot of resources about nearly everything online, so we just have to select what we consider the most suitable to what we want to achieve and try it, improve it, and share our experience like I’m doing now to help other teachers in the future. Therefore, I found this video and I thought that the activity proposed could be effective. 

The activity consists of cutting different circumferences and students have to encircle them with a woolen string to check that its length is three times and a bit the length of the diameter, it is to say, that the length of the circumference is π x the diameter or π x the radius x 2.

The results of this activity were positive in general, since students understood very quickly the concept of π and its relation to the length of the circumference. At first, they were a little bit confused as they are not used to study Maths this way, and they thought that it was a kind of game, but finally they assumed that we were working, and that they needed to pay attention and be concentrated.  So, we need to take into account that to teach Maths (or any other subject) by these kinds of activities, they cannot appear by fits and starts, but to become a working routine.   

I would have liked to prepare an entire Didactic Unit of Maths to plan my own activities to check if it’s possible to fulfill the objectives raised by the textbook, to compare students’ results, to do a test of motivation, etc. But, although it hasn’t been possible, I’ve loved to research a little bit more about maths teaching and to have had this opportunity to face a real class. After all, as I defend a global Education not divided on subjects, I think that we should not focus only in our specialty but try to experience a wider perspective.