Exploring proportional reasoning through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:
I had to teach a unit about proportions. To start the unit I showed a part of the movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. Specifically, the part where Harry meets Hagrid the first time. After watching the movie I started a discussion about Hagrid’s height, if he is really as tall and what they did to make him appear so tall. The discussion was followed by a worksheet for which the students had to measure daily objects like a fork and calculate the size versus Hagrid’s size. Finally, they had to solve two proportion problems based on their gained knowledge.
The students were engaged by using a movie all of them knew or at least heard about. Exploring proportional reasoning through the movie seemed to motivate the students since it was different from the “normal” math lessons and it made the content more relevant for the students because it was an example out of their daily life. The students understood the concepts of proportions really fast and were able to apply it to different problems. I got the impression that the students were proud of their results since they found the way to solve the problems nearly on their own. I was surprised how well the students responded to this way of introducing a new unit.