Matt Ator

Math Balderdash
by Peter Albert

I first worked with Matt Ator in our faculty cohort last year and was impressed by the thoughtful and creative approach he took whenever addressing educational topics. I was especially impressed to hear about his Logic and Reasoning course, which unfortunately is not running this year. This course demonstrated not just Mr. Ator's level of commitment to teaching excellence, but his concern with providing authentic lessons for his students.

One of Mr. Ator's innovative lesson plans is "Math Balderdash." Aadil Mufti, one of his students, says the lesson "really helped [me] understand how and why graphs are formed for certain purposes. The exposure to the different graph shapes really challenged [me] to create a logical purpose for the graph." When I asked Aadil to help me spotlight this lesson, he lit up and was excited to help, a sure sign of not just a great lesson, but great teaching.

Here is my interview with Mr. Ator, describing the game and his thoughts on education and innovation.

Peter Albert: Can you describe the game? What are your objectives, and why do you think it is successful?

Matt Ator: The game is a variation of Balderdash, in which players are shown an obscure vocabulary word and have to guess what the definition is. Players then vote on which definition they think is correct. In my version, students are broken into teams of three or four, and each team logs in to Pear Deck. I show them a graph with limited information (no units, axes are not labeled, etc.) as shown here:

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Students then look at what is happening in the graph and try to guess what is being represented. They type in their answers to Pear Deck, and I add the correct answer from my own account. Guesses might be:

• Temperatures in Princeton through the month of October 2014;

• Average visitors to the air and space museum in Washington DC; 

• The chance each team in this year's World Series game 7 had to win over the course of the game, etc. 

I show the answers to the entire class. They will only know their own answer and are asked to guess which explanation is correct. Teams receive two points for guessing the correct answer and one point for every other team that guesses their explanation. Teams also get five points if they guess the correct explanation for the graph (this has only happened once since I started the game).
The game's success comes from the creativity required to play. Students have to understand how you would display data in different ways. What would make sense as an independent or dependent variable? Why were the colors used in the graph chosen? Occasionally, I will give some of the units on the graph (notice above the x-axis goes from 1-9) to assist in guesses, and they have to figure out what units are being used. Instead of students having memorized a formula and regurgitating facts about it, they are asked to think creatively and make connections between real life situations and how those might be represented graphically. Students who might struggle with memorizing formulas are often very successful in the game.

Peter Albert: How do you think that this game creates authentic learning that will contribute to the real-world success of these students? 

Matt Ator: When students encounter "real world" math, it will rarely be in the form of "Read an example and copy the methods to solve for x." Students will need to be literate in math ideas and how they can be utilized. This forces students to analyze data with minimal information and figure out what it could be applied to. This can be reverse engineered to ask students to create interesting representations of data they might have collected. By thinking about creative examples, they are able to become more creative in their own work.

Peter Albert: What place does innovation have in the math classroom? 

Matt Ator: Many adults were turned off of math at an early age because of the way they were taught. I could easily lecture 50 minutes a day about how to use a formula, give an example, do an example as a class, then have the class do one on their own. This is repetitive and boring; it is very easy for students to be left behind or resent the subject if you never show them more than one method for how to do a problem.

In my classroom, I will often skip the first two steps and go straight to the students trying an example on their own. They are then required to work with each other to think about how things they have used in the past might be applied to the given problem. They are forced to try to solve with a trial and error method. They have to talk to each other about the topics they have learned and how they could use them in different ways. Even if they are not able to figure out the given problem, they have, hopefully, gained a deeper understanding of past topics. This has been much more effective than feeding them they steps they need.

Peter Albert: How important is risk-taking as an educator? 

Matt Ator: Risk taking in the classroom is being stressed in just about every book, blog, and conference you'll see right now. It is very important that teachers feel able to try something different, because when it works, the rewards are incredible. However, with a very limited number of teaching days throughout the school year, it is very intimidating to break from what is comfortable, because the potential clean-up can put you far behind where you want to be. I have found that trying out smaller discovery learning lessons, 15-20 minutes, will give me a good idea of what my classes are capable of and how much freedom they are capable of working with. By building from smaller unique lessons, students can become more comfortable with a new style and eventually can get to the point of learning entire sections in a more student driven way.

Peter Albert: Grant Lichtman says that innovation "enhances value for your organization." How do you think that this game "enhances value" for The Hun School? In other words, how does it contribute to our mission and our search for best practices as teachers to serve our students? 

Matt Ator: The game "enhances value" by allowing students of all levels to be put on the same playing field. Basic graphing principles are taught in Algebra I, so nearly every student in the upper school could participate in the game. Students enjoy the competition and want to come up with their best answers to win. Although every time we play there is a winner, I have never given out a prize. Students are driven to do their best because they are having fun and competing. In numerous college recommendations, I have mentioned this game as an example of creativity, making connections, and mathematical understanding. One of the best skills for the game is well-roundedness, and that is a prime characteristic we are looking for in all our students.

Peter Albert: How do you think this game could translate into other classes and disciplines in a productive fashion? 

Matt Ator: The graphs I choose can require making connections between topics ranging from science

Sunrise sunset times over the course of a year

to technology

MySpace users with respect to time
note: students have no idea what MySpace is 

to silly​

Preferred temperature of different animals (real and imaginary)

and the first graph I showed... 

Athletics​

Data analysis will be required no matter what you do in life, whether it is a quarterly report or just understanding the next week's expected weather. This game gives examples of all of these and helps students gain a better understanding of their applications.

As an observer, my favorite part of the activity is the requirement of the students to interpret data for which they do not necessarily have any context. This provides an authentic experience, reflective of the messiness and complexity that will appear in students' lives as the move into the "real world." As with all of the other innovators featured in this blog, Mr. Ator is giving his students a rich learning experience that is also, as Aadil says, "a genuinely enjoyable" experience.

For anyone interested in some real, interesting depictions of data, see http://flowingdata.com.