PowerPoint and Probability

In the second part of this week the math lessons focused on probability. I used images of the sides of a die to demonstrate the vocabulary for the lesson (certain, probable and impossible). I put up a slide with each word (just the word) as I explained what each meant. I followed up with a slide that had an image of all six sides of a die (1-6) while I asked questions such as “is it certain, probable and impossible for me to roll a 7, a number less than 7, or a 5 with this die (I also had an actual oversized die in my hand). We dissected the question and included or excluded die images until we reached an answer. We walked through the process a few times before the students went on to independent work in their book.

Overall I think the slides worked well. The one thing I would mention is that I could have just shown the one image and achieved the same goal. I put the image into a PowerPoint slide but I could have used any image viewer to the same effect.