I am always looking for new ways to engage students in mathematics. This year I will be using fantasy sports as a tool to get students excited about math. The inclusion of fantasy sports in learning environments has been shown to be a unique and effective method to teach mathematics.
Fantasy sports are games in which students create fantasy teams by picking real-life professional athletes, who earn points based on their performances in their games. Students track their players' statistics and compute points for their teams using algebraic or non-algebraic methods that complement the math skills they are learning.
Students can follow their players in newspapers, online, or on television. Each week, they will also construct graphs that show the scoring breakdown for their teams. I may also integrate fantasy sports worksheets into the game that dovetail with the math concepts that students are working on in their textbooks.
Thousands of students and parents are already playing fantasy sports together in classrooms throughout the country. This unit will be more fun if you are involved. Your participation would also serve to build community within our school, and the friendly spirit of competition would be enjoyable for all.
I hope you are excited as I am about using fantasy sports to facilitate learning. Sports statistics represent real-life data that has meaning for students. Fantasy sports helps students to make connections between math at school and math in the real world. Research indicates that learning is facilitated when these connections are made. If you want more information about the fantasy sports programs we will use, you can visit www.fantasysportsmath.com .