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I was once asked by one of my students “When will we need to use this?” in concern to algebraic equations; the student in question asked the question to get their participation points for the day and to give me a reason to take another Tylenol. However, being the teacher that I am, I answered: “Tomorrow, on your quiz.” Still, I felt that I owed my student a better explanation in a field where, to be honest, is the best inducer of sleep along with English teachers who believe that the “Scarlet Letter” is a riveting book to read.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my room letting my inner child run around on World of Warcraft (WoW) and pushing players of ledges who were dumb enough to go “away from keyboard” near cliffs; “Hello Pwnstar, meet my friend: Push-back.” My concentration on this important task was broken when I realized that I had enough in-game tokens to upgrade my equipment and I set out to determine what would be the best item to get amongst two possible choices.
The first item increased the damage of an over-time (OT) spell by 374 points and the second increased the damage of an instant-damage spell by 165 points. Being indecisive in how I spend my in-game gold and tokens, I was confounded by which item to purchase. I could have just bought the one with the biggest number in its description, but I didn’t trust the numbers. In truth, we all seem to gravitate towards big numbers since “bigger” tends to be “better” in our daily lives (unless you account for bigger hamburgers giving a bigger number of cardiac arrests). I did what most people in my situation would do with a bunch of students/minions: I posed my classes a problem to solve my dilemma.
On the board I wrote: “An over-time spell, with an instant cast, that lasts fourteen seconds and can do 1974 damage points, whereas another spell takes three seconds to cast and can do 1345 damage points. Using the stats of the items below, which item would be the better buy in terms of damage output?” After explaining a few of the vocabulary terms, my students set to work to solve the problem.
Taking these numbers into account, my students hypothesized that if I had the first item, I could do a maximum of 2348 (1974+374) damage points and the other item would net me 1510 (1345+165) per shot; clearly, to the untrained eye, the former item was the best bet. Thankfully, some of my students pointed out the flawed vision and continued the hypothesis. The OT spell lasts fourteen seconds, which means I could reasonably cast four shots of the other spell which takes three seconds to cast; by the time the OT spell did its full 2348 points of damage, I would have caused 4530 (1510*4) points with the other spell. For the students, it seemed then that the last item was the best bet and I took that idea home and bought the item. For my students, I did a “dummy test” showing the damage per second (DPS) difference from using item one or item two, and proved their hypotheses thanks to some in-game number crunching.
I admit that event has caused me to be labeled a “nerd” in the faculty lounge, but this perfectly showed a real-world-virtual-world example of how using algebraic expressions can be used to choose the best item to get, whether it be at a store or in a game. Anything that helps to “click” a lesson in my students’ minds is worth the social mockery. Alas, now my students snicker at my un-closeted nerdness (I didn’t stop at that example, now WoW pops up every so often in their lessons and tests), but I don’t care. I have one hot, smart night-elf druid, and nothing is it getting her or me down, least of all middle school students
I was once asked by one of my students “When will we need to use this?” in concern to algebraic equations; the student in question asked the question to get their participation points for the day and to give me a reason to take another Tylenol. However, being the teacher that I am, I answered: “Tomorrow, on your quiz.” Still, I felt that I owed my student a better explanation in a field where, to be honest, is the best inducer of sleep along with English teachers who believe that the “Scarlet Letter” is a riveting book to read.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my room letting my inner child run around on World of Warcraft (WoW) and pushing players of ledges who were dumb enough to go “away from keyboard” near cliffs; “Hello Pwnstar, meet my friend: Push-back.” My concentration on this important task was broken when I realized that I had enough in-game tokens to upgrade my equipment and I set out to determine what would be the best item to get amongst two possible choices.
The first item increased the damage of an over-time (OT) spell by 374 points and the second increased the damage of an instant-damage spell by 165 points. Being indecisive in how I spend my in-game gold and tokens, I was confounded by which item to purchase. I could have just bought the one with the biggest number in its description, but I didn’t trust the numbers. In truth, we all seem to gravitate towards big numbers since “bigger” tends to be “better” in our daily lives (unless you account for bigger hamburgers giving a bigger number of cardiac arrests). I did what most people in my situation would do with a bunch of students/minions: I posed my classes a problem to solve my dilemma.
On the board I wrote: “An over-time spell, with an instant cast, that lasts fourteen seconds and can do 1974 damage points, whereas another spell takes three seconds to cast and can do 1345 damage points. Using the stats of the items below, which item would be the better buy in terms of damage output?” After explaining a few of the vocabulary terms, my students set to work to solve the problem.
Taking these numbers into account, my students hypothesized that if I had the first item, I could do a maximum of 2348 (1974+374) damage points and the other item would net me 1510 (1345+165) per shot; clearly, to the untrained eye, the former item was the best bet. Thankfully, some of my students pointed out the flawed vision and continued the hypothesis. The OT spell lasts fourteen seconds, which means I could reasonably cast four shots of the other spell which takes three seconds to cast; by the time the OT spell did its full 2348 points of damage, I would have caused 4530 (1510*4) points with the other spell. For the students, it seemed then that the last item was the best bet and I took that idea home and bought the item. For my students, I did a “dummy test” showing the damage per second (DPS) difference from using item one or item two, and proved their hypotheses thanks to some in-game number crunching.
I admit that event has caused me to be labeled a “nerd” in the faculty lounge, but this perfectly showed a real-world-virtual-world example of how using algebraic expressions can be used to choose the best item to get, whether it be at a store or in a game. Anything that helps to “click” a lesson in my students’ minds is worth the social mockery. Alas, now my students snicker at my un-closeted nerdness (I didn’t stop at that example, now WoW pops up every so often in their lessons and tests), but I don’t care. I have one hot, smart night-elf druid, and nothing is it getting her or me down, least of all middle school students
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