Texas Mathematics Teacher Fall/Winter 2019 - 18

Makerspace Mathematics: Explore, Collaborate, & Innovate

Teachers also discussed how the innovate part of the
process, during which students created a model, helped
student conceptual understanding. One teacher stated,
"I think in the context of making a cake it helped a lot of
them understand with the frosting and the actual cake
what the difference is between surface area and volume.
They are still both related to 3D shapes, but they are
talking about different measurements." While another
also believed that students benefited conceptually from
the real-world connection of making a cake, "I think
anytime you can tie something back to real life it always
helps out a little bit with understanding and it is better
than a worksheet."
Figure 5. Actual Cake
Teacher Reactions to Cake Boss
Several of the teachers discussed how the makerspace
process of explore, collaborate, and innovate, combined
with the available technology helped students understand
the conceptual nature of surface area and volume during
the Cake Boss maker experience. One teacher commented,
"I think it was helpful in terms of surface area for them
to be able to rotate it around and look at all the different
surfaces and kind of actually isolate a surface. I think the
technology really did for some of the kids that did not
already have some of the understanding, it kind of clicked
with them." In her comments she viewed being able to
render a shape in 3D beneficial to student understanding.
Throughout the week students would build their cake
design and then make changes to their dimensions to
make sure their cakes were the appropriate size or looked
appealing. As their cake dimensions changed, students
were able to see how their surface area and volume were
affected. This was one of the benefits of the model, at
any time students could return to the collaboration stage
and discuss changes with their partner and alter their
design. Another teacher commented on this further, "I
think it helped some of them too to realize that surface
area and volume are not necessarily connected. All of our
cakes have more or less the same volume because we are
trying to feed the same amount of people, but because of
the different dimensions we used our surface areas are
completely different."

The teachers believed that working through the process
in the makerspace provided more motivation for the
students to extend their learning and allowed for a
differentiated experience. One teacher stated, "I had kids
who wanted to do a dome or half sphere which was not
part of the requirements. They had to take their volume
and adapt it with these shapes to get the right results."
Another teacher commented, "I have students who
normally struggle, and they give up in class and they
give up on a worksheet or notes that are more traditional,
and this gave them that freedom to really try more things
and to go that extra step because they wanted to do the
math." Finally, a teacher added in reference to student
differentiation, "No one had the same exact project, some
of them had 3 tiers, some had 4 tiers." At the end of the
week students were able to solve the problem but having
the freedom to design their solution in the makerspace
lead to different strategies and final products.
Overall, the teachers believed that students were able to
understand the concepts of surface area and volume by
going through the process of explore, collaborate, and
innovate by "making" a cake in the makerspace. It gave
students the opportunity to view the cake designs they
created and see actual 3D models. It also allowed students
the freedom to make changes to their dimensions and
discover how that related to surface area and volume.
As one teacher stated, "I think having an actual visual
of building something using the 3D design software, the
students were able to see all perspectives of it. I think it
really played into their understanding, especially surface
area. It really surprised me because we have always just
shown kids the net version."

"

I think in the context of making a cake it helped a lot of them
understand with the frosting and the actual cake what the difference
is between surface area and volume. They are still both related to 3D
shapes, but they are talking about different measurements.

"

18

| Fall/Winter 2019

Texas Mathematics Teacher
Texas Mathematics Teacher Fall/Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Texas Mathematics Teacher Fall/Winter 2019
