Often times, students don't pay much attention to math outside of the class. Of course, they know how to compute change when buying something or figure out grades, but ask the average students how often math skills are called on to solve everyday issues and they come up short. Many times getting and holding their full attention takes quite a bit of work on the teacher's part:)
Here is a site that offers 4 minute clips (more or less) from Hollywood movies where math is used at some point in the movie.
MATHEMATICS IN MOVIES (Oliver Knill from the Department of Mathematics of Harvard University) offers clips from movies in which math is used at some point in the film. Some of the clips are humorous (ex. Bud Abbot and Lou Costello working out a math problem incorrectly) while others are somewhat more serious like the story October Sky in which a child has a dream to be escape his coal miner town to become a designer of rockets for NASA). While some samples have actual math clips you can show immediately, others are only trailers BUT come with recommendations of teachers throughout the country. If you have access to online streaming video packages such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc., you can stream the movies directly into your classroom OR save them on your own computer to show your class.
If math has a purpose which students can relate to, math scores will go up:)
Enjoy!
Denise
ELL Teacher Pros
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