High+School+-+Math+Memory+Matching+Game+-+Kevin's+Project

=**Principles of Learning**=

James Paul Gee identifies 36 specific learning principles of video games in his book //What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy//. There are two such principles of learning at play in the activity designed below. The first is the semiotic principle, which Gee describes as, "Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions symbols, artifacts, etc.) as a complex system is core to the learning experience." (p. 221) The second is Gee's practice principle, which he describes: "Learners get lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e., in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task." (p. 223) I will explain how these two principles apply to the activity here.

//Semiotic Principle://
In this activity students will flip over cards to determine if they match. Some of these matches are between vocabulary words and diagrams of what those words represent. It is common in geometry for the content-specific vocabulary to concern physical aspects of shapes. These cards are used to help students identify what the content vocabulary terms are really referring to. In this way students must learn to link the pictorial/diagrammatic representation of an idea with the textual/spoken representation of an idea.

//Practice Principle://
Some of the cards in this activity require students to practice their skills for finding the area of polygons. The game requires students to turn over a pair of cards. If one card is a polygon with information written on it and the other is a card that says area = 45, student will have to determine if the area of the polygon is actually 45. The fact that there are several iterations of cards like this means that students will have plenty of practice with the skills necessary to find the area of polygons. There are also other calculations for the students to do, which give students practice with those skills.

=Content-Specific Learning Objectives=

Objective 1: Students will accurately identify pictorial representations of unit-specific vocabulary words. Objective 2: Students will use known formulae to correctly find the area of polygons when presented with a polygon and necessary information. Objective 3: Students will use known formulae to correctly find missing information about a polygon when given the polygon's area and other necessary information.

=Activity Resources=

//How the game works://
There are 40 memory cards that students in teams of two to four place, number side up on their desks/table. Each student takes turns flipping over two cards at a time. The pair/group must determine if the two cards match (e.g. a picture of a major arc may be on one card and arc BCD may be written on the other card). If they do match, the students write down on their key card that those two numbered cards match and who it was who got the match. Then the student who found the match keeps the cards and flips another two cards over. If the cards do not match, the next student takes a turn. Students continue taking turns like this until all of the matches have been found. Once they have identified all of the matches their key cards can be compared to the master key card to see what matches they may have gotten wrong. Below is a PDF file of the concentration cards, pages for student key cards, and the master key.