- Today on "Extra Credit" strategies for learning math, making triangles with our bodies and so much more stay tuned.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "Extra Credit" where we meet interesting people, explore new ideas and discover fun places together.

I'm your host Arise.

Did you know that as you struggle you're also learning.

It's true in sports, playing an instrument, and it's even true in learning math.

Let's take a look.

(upbeat music) (suspenseful music) - Welcome.

We're so excited you're joining our ranks.

We could definitely use some help spreading our messages to math learners all around the world.

- We know you've been doing some training but we have one final task before you can go and save the world.

- I'm ready to go.

- How about we start with some non math examples?

(upbeat music) - So you sit down like this, and you roll back, and you slap.

(upbeat music) - Okay, phew.

(piano music) (crowd cheering) - So what did you think?

- That was so cool.

I was impressed that they kept going even when they were making mistakes.

- Yeah.

Well now it's time for a real Youcubian assignment, kids doing math.

(gentle music) (cinematic music) - Oh, I know what to do.

They're struggling.

I'm gonna go help them.

- [Both] No.

- Remember what we just saw?

They were struggling and it was awesome.

- And this is like exactly the same deal.

It's just math.

Oh, I get it.

I'm gonna try again.

- Yeah.

- Hey friends, what's up?

- This is so hard.

- My brain hurts and I'm tired.

- I thought I knew this, but I just can't solve it.

- That's great, I love to hear it.

Being at the very, very edge of your understanding is actually when you learn the most.

- Yeah, you're probably gonna make lots of mistakes and that's awesome.

If you were working on easier problems and getting everything right, you wouldn't be learning as much.

- Yeah, remember when you were practicing and you were doing your jiu-jitsu, you were playing soccer, and you were than your glockenspiel?

The three of you were really struggling, but that's because you were really learning.

And this is exactly like that.

Once this gets easy because you've practiced so much, then you should move on to something harder so you can keep struggling.

- I was going to come save you, but you don't need saving.

You're doing great.

You just have to keep reminding yourselves and each other that mistakes are good, and struggling is actually fantastic for your brain.

Soon that these problems won't even be challenging anymore and that's when you know you're ready to find some harder ones.

- Cool.

(dramatic music) (gentle music) - Whoa that's so cool I didn't see it like that.

- Whoa, that's cool.

(gentle music) (cinematic music) - Researchers have studied people.

Who've reached a very high level of achievement to see how they got there.

And they found nobody was born with a special brain, but they engaged in a very particular kind of practice.

And the researchers described it like this, they said that the people who achieve the most were those who were always pushing at the edge of their understanding.

Making mistakes, correcting them, making more mistakes.

They weren't getting work correct all the time, they were always struggling.

They set high targets for themselves and if they became stuck, they tried a different approach so that they could keep going.

Research has also found that there really are no limits to what people can do.

When people don't go onto high achievement it's usually because they give up not because they've hit actual road blocks that they can't get past.

So always remember that when you're struggling, even if that can feel really hard that's the very best time for your brain.

And keep going, never give up on maths always remember you can learn anything.

(dramatic music) (upbeat music) (dramatic music) (pop music) (upbeat music) (suspenseful music) (dramatic music) - For me, whenever I work on a math problem I always want to draw it first.

So that's one of the strategies I always use particularly if I'm given a really hard math problem.

So Youcubians, what helps you think mathematically?

- I like to talk to my friends and share my ideas.

- Hey, what's 11 squared?

- 121.

- I've done better with math when I was talking with people, sharing ideas.

(indistinct chatter) - Four or five brains work better than one.

- Seven and 21 make 28, I found this one at 28.

- Yeah, I did that too.

- Yes.

- When something seems really hard, I don't give up.

I keep trying and look at new ways of seeing it.

- I'll see it one way, but then someone also see it another way, and I'll be like, "Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense."

- When I don't know something there's so many resources available for me to look things up.

- But if you start taking cubes off, like I'm taking a few there, see, that's the core of it.

- You will like this.

You can look this up yourselves on YouTube.

- When I'm thinking of something complex, I start with a smaller case.

(gentle music) What I really liked about what you did is you decided to take a smaller case.

- And once we tested this smaller case back with our visual we found the same number.

(gentle music) (dramatic music) (upbeat music) - Hey everyone, Diane here.

Today, we are going to be using our wonderful mind to think about how we can identify different characteristics of different triangles.

Before we jump into it, let's talk about what we know about triangles.

Share that with your people and me too.

Yes, it is three sided and it's a closed figure.

Oh, that was another good one.

There are different types like equilateral.

So here are some different triangles.

Right now let's take a little bit of time to look at these triangles.

What do you see they have in common?

And do you notice some things that are very different?

(guitar music) Ah, so you notice that some of the triangles have different side length.

Yes, I see that with this one here.

I heard someone else say something about the corners of some triangles.

We call these angles and yes some have very different size angles.

We have three ways to talk about angles for today.

There are more, we'll save them for another time.

A right angle is 90 degrees like the corner of a paper or an L. We then have an acute angle that's smaller than 90 degrees.

Like when a cabinet is mostly closed or I'm using my hand as a mouth.

And then there are obtuse angles that are larger than 90 degrees.

Like when a cabinet is all the way open and I'm looking for my favorite cereal for a snack.

Or when my arm is almost all the way straight.

We'll come back to these triangles, but what I want you to do now is hop up and find a spot where you have some space.

Let's do some math yoga.

That's right.

We're going to be making triangles with our bodies.

You can use your arms, your legs, the floor, a wall whatever to help you.

We are going to start with making any triangle that you want.

I'm going to make one using my lower body as one side, my upper body as the second side, and the floor as my third side.

So go ahead and get into your poses and we're gonna take some deep breaths.

Be the triangle.

You are the triangle.

All right, do my sides look pretty close to being equal?

They look pretty close to me.

Y'all doing a great job with your poses.

When the sides are all equal that is called an equilateral triangle, Equal for equal, and lateral for sides.

If we look at the angles of this triangle, what do you notice?

Yeah, I heard several different ideas.

One person said there are three of them.

Someone else says, it looks like all of them are less than 90 degrees.

Does anyone remember what those are called?

Say it with me everybody, acute angles.

Let's try another or triangle pose.

I wanna make a triangle with three different side lengths.

Let's try that out.

You can get creative with this.

Maybe have someone with you, help you out.

So I'm gonna stretch out my legs and I'm gonna put my arms like I'm trying to touch my ankle.

You can see deep breaths right here is my triangle.

Hold it just for a little bit.

All right.

Some people made really big differences when they were making their triangles.

Other people made some really small differences like bending their elbow, or knee to change the length of the sides.

So as you can see from the example that I had I used my stretched out leg, arm, and body to make three different side lengths.

This is called a scalene triangle.

All three sides are different lengths and it could look like this.

Do you notice anything about the angles of this triangle?

Yeah that's true.

Someone said it looks like one is obtuse and the other two are acute.

That's what I noticed too.

We could also call this triangle an obtuse triangle because of that one obtuse angle.

So now hop up if you're sitting for one final triangle pose.

This time I want you to try and make a triangle with two sides that are congruent.

I'm going to try it just using one leg, but feel free to get creative again.

All right, here we go.

If you lose your balance, that's totally fine.

We make a triangle right here.

All right.

Deep breath.

Everybody see the triangle.

Everybody got their pose?

I think you're doing a great job.

Do you think this one was more challenging than the others?

When a triangle has exactly two equal sides it's called an isosceles triangle.

For this one, I also have a right angle so it could be called a right triangle two.

From our triangles up here, do you see any that have a right triangle two?

Yeah, this is the one that caught my eye first.

Maybe it's the same one for you.

Now that we've gotten our examples for all of our triangles.

Let's look at the rest of these.

It's neat how, even though all of these are all the same triangles they don't exactly look the same.

And look at that, from our yoga poses, we have sorted our triangles into groups based on their side lengths.

We talked some about the angle measurements and you'll also get a chance to practice that with some other activities.

Today we focused on equilateral triangles with three equal sides.

Isosceles triangles, with two equal sides and scalene triangles with no equal sides.

We also got to see some right angles, acute, and obtuse angles.

Thanks for the yoga class.

Keep practicing those triangle poses.

Bye y'all.

(pop music) (upbeat music) (gentle music) (upbeat music) (dramatic music) - I'm just not a math person.

Math isn't for me.

I should just give up.

- Oh, it's okay.

You don't have to be good at math.

You can be good at other things.

- Did you hear what they just said?

- Yeah, it sounds like they believe in the myth of the math person.

- That damaging myth that's just everywhere?

- What?

- You're caught in a myth, but that's okay.

The Youcubians are experts at fighting myths.

- Yes we fight myths with science.

- Brain science tells us that no one is born without a math brain and no one is born with one.

In fact, our brains are constantly growing and changing.

No one is born a math person.

- Yeah.

Don't trap your brain in the myth.

You can do whatever you set your mind to.

- Wow, that's really cool.

- I'm excited for my brain to change and grow as I learn.

- [Both] Go science.

- I guess I should stop assuming that some people are naturally good at math and some people aren't.

I should change my message to say that everyone can do anything and your brain can grow and change.

- I wasn't sure if math was going to be for me, 'cause I didn't realize that what I secretly liked about math was actually something that could be valued in it.

That all the why questions and the reasoning behind how I got to my answer, was just as valuable as the answer I got.

- Suddenly math was really hard.

And at first that was hard for me 'cause I was trying to figure out how to approach this.

At first it was really jarring and really difficult, but I started really enjoying thinking really hard.

- And so I never believed in my math abilities, I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm a reader, I'm a writer."

I had some incredible teachers my junior and senior year.

It was clear from their passion of math, they really wanted us to have similar passions for the subject.

- One of the most damaging ideas in education that's completely wrong, is the idea of a math person, that some people are born with a maths brain and some people aren't.

- But it seems that some students find it easier to learn math than others.

- That's true, but that's because they've had different experiences and different messages, and those have allowed different pathways to form in their brain.

But the way you develop your mathematical brain is this: When you learn something new a pathway to forms in your brain and at first it's a really delicate, faint pathway.

But as you go back to an idea and think about it more deeply, it turns into a stronger and stronger pathway that you can use forever more.

- Oh, so is that why practicing a new idea really helps you learn it?

- Yeah.

And it isn't always that new pathways are formed, when you learn something, it can be that a pathway you already have becomes strengthened.

The third thing that can happen is when you learn something new a connection forms between pathways you have in your brain.

That's so cool to think about the new brain pathways growing.

- The incredible plasticity of the brain.

- So this is how you develop a maths brain.

The harder you try, the more you'll develop your brain.

So always know that you can learn anything with good teaching and lots of effort.

(jovial music) (upbeat music) - I started playing by basketball.

- Tennis.

- Football.

- Football(speaking in foreign language) - Getting really good at something isn't easy.

- It takes persistence and hard work.

- It takes years of commitment.

- Success isn't just about training your body.

- It's also about training your mind.

- Your body and brain get stronger when you push yourself.

- I didn't always know I'd be a basketball champion.

(speaking in foreign language) - If you can dream it, you can do it.

- You can bring any idea to life.

- It's not gonna be easy.

- It takes time and determination like anything else.

- You'll make mistakes, you'll get better.

- You'll get stronger, and you'll succeed.

- Push yourself.

- Push yourself, - Push yourself.

- Push yourself.

- You did it.

♪ Na na na na ♪ ♪ Na na na na ♪ ♪ Na na na na ♪ - Anybody can learn.

(speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) - That's all for today folks.

I had a time exploring math with you.

By the way how many triangles did you make with your body?

For more fun activities, be sure to visit our website.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by, Michigan Department of Education, the State of Michigan, and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music) (gentle music)