1 May 2016

Animations for A level

Last week I presented on A level resources at Stuart Price's 'Maths in the Sticks' event. I spoke briefly about how we can use animations to support our explanations of mathematical concepts. Many teachers already make use of programmes such as Geogebra, Autograph and Desmos, but here I'm talking specifically about animated gifs that teachers can simply paste into a PowerPoint. Gifs run on a loop so students can watch them for a while, providing 'thinking time' in the lesson and allowing new ideas to click into place.

I use gifs alongside physical demonstrations where possible, for example when I teach Volume of Revolution I show animations and use paper props too (see Gems 45).

So where can you get animated maths gifs? A Google Images search is normally sufficient but there are a few websites you might like to check out:
Here are some examples of gifs suitable for A level. You can copy them directly into PowerPoint. Some are more helpful than others - watch each animation for a minute and decide whether you think it adds any value.

Definite Integration. Source: 0a explains
The Trapezium Rule. Source: Vivaxsolutions.com
Radians. Source: LucasVB

Tangent to a curve. Source: Calculus in Motion


Completing the Square. Source: LucasVB


Product Rule. Source: mathwarehouse.com

Quotient Rule. Source: mathwarehouse.com

Logs. Source: Purplemath.com


Normal Distribution by Robert Ghrist. Source: Gizmodo



If you're looking for animations for Key Stage 3 and GCSE have a look through my blog posts tagged 'animations'.



2 comments:

  1. Love the graph ones, not sure the product/quotient rule ones actually have value (if they included the proof, that would be different).

    Now... How do I print these a worksheet? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like the integration rectangles and normal distribution - adding them into my lesson plans.

    ReplyDelete