Classroom math lessons usually consist of a teacher lecturing in front of a whiteboard as students turn the pages in their textbooks with an uninterested rustle. But in one Colorado middle school, math class has morphed into Fantasy Football 101, with students drafting real NFL players, tracking their stats, and calculating performance-based point totals from week to week as they compete for prizes. It’s a game usually reserved for grown men playing against their friends online as wives and girlfriends lament the loss of their loved ones, but playing fantasy football with your students can work out a lot better than you might think. They probably already have a basic knowledge of the game, the league, and its players, so you can focus on teaching them the basic arithmetic and statistical skills they need to calculate how many points their players have scored from week to week.

While it may be a little late to start an NFL league, teachers have another chance to jump on the fantasy bandwagon with the beginning of the pro basketball season. Have your students draft their own teams and compete head-to-head or against the whole class. You can create your own scoring system where teams can gain or lose points based on the previous day’s box scores - the more advanced the grade level, the more complex you can make the scoring. Playing fantasy basketball offers a couple other notable benefits:

• Unlike the NFL, the NBA plays almost every day, which means students have more scores to follow. This can give them the extra repetition they need to learn math, and it keeps them engaged on a more consistent basis.
• Students often complain that math lessons don’t apply to the real world. Despite the name, “fantasy basketball” can show students firsthand that math plays a vital role in everything they follow and enjoy.

So what do you need to play? Not a whole lot. Use your whiteboard, interactive whiteboard, chalkboard, or bulletin board liberally to post results or illustrate some of the finer points you need to make. Other than that, just try to stay on-topic and avoid useless debates about who’s winning the NBA title this year (because we all know the Celtics will repeat). You can also try tying your lessons to other real-life, non-sports events, such as the stock market or the presidential elections. Have fun and if you have ideas or feedback from your own in-class fantasy sports experiences, leave us a comment.

(Photo via Morguefile)