ABC’s hit entrepreneurial reality T.V. show, Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs pitch their business products to five of the wealthiest people in America is a great teaching tool for your math class in middle and high school.

The show is entertaining as there are interesting products, heart-warming stories, and engaging back-and-forths between the main characters on the show and each other or with the people who are pitching their ideas.

Each episode is also full of real-world applications and examples of mathematics. As investors seek to obtain a percentage of the business on the show you will see proportions, fractions and percents, percent increase and decrease, positive and negative numbers, math vocabulary (debt,withdraw, proceeds, revenue) and more.

I love showing Shark Tank to my students, and they love watching it. And the best part is, as we watch the show, we answer questions on a worksheet as we solve the math problems that the show presents to us.

I show segments of Shark Tank to my students for multiple reasons.

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1. When Discussing Proportions

The show is full of conversations about proportions. A candidate enters the show with a business or produce seeking monetary compensation in exchange for a percentage of his/her business. For example, the business owner might ask for $100,000 in exchange for 10% of the business. The obvious part to whole question is ‘if 10% of the business is worth $100,000 what is the whole business worth?”

The owner might counter and ask for $100,000 for 5% of the business.What is the new evaluation of the business? What percent change has this new proposal made?

2) When Discussing Fractions and Percents

Sometimes, there will be multiple owners of the business. If they all get an equal share, what percent of the business do they each have? Or if the shark wants 50% of the business, what percent will the other two owners have if they each have an equal share?

There are lots of questions that correlate well to fractions, percents, and proportions.

3) To Introduce the Stock Market Project

One of my favorite activities to do with my students is the stock market project, where students must select stocks to invest in and track their progress. This project is fun and the students get a lot out of it.

To learn more about doing the stock market project in your class, read this.

4) Vocabulary Builder

When I was teaching integers to my students, I noticed that there are lots of terms that the students needed to know to answer the word problems on the test. Most students are not familiar with most of these terms. Words such as ‘withdraw,’ ‘ascend,’ ‘debt,’ ‘decline,’ ‘debit,’ and other real world terms that apply to positive and negative numbers.

Shark Tank episodes (or segments) will expose your students to many of these terms, and more.

5) When I’ve Got 5 Minutes to Spare

If class ends early, or we accomplish everything we had planned for that day, I usually give students more practice problems – since repetition is the key to remembering and comprehension. However, there are some days when we do something different. Occasionally we will do something fun, like watch a funny video, share an interesting story, or tell a funny joke. I do this to create a positive learning environment and build good relations with my students.

However, sometimes, I will show segments of Shark Tank. It’s not easy, since most segments are around 8-10 minutes. Further complicating the situation is that you must preview the segments since sometimes they contain things I’d rather not be showing my students – such as they are products that relate to alcoholic beverages, or they will show girls in bikinis, or a product that makes your kisses flavored when applied to both peoples’ lips.

But, as already mentioned, there are lots of benefits to showing segments of shark tank to your students, so I try to fit them in from time to time.

6) Those Days Before a Break

Have you ever walked the hallways during the day before a break? It’s like a movie theater. Every teacher is playing a movie in a different classroom. I encourage teachers to meet with their team and plan out there activities for the day so that not everyone is playing a movie or video.

On those days, I typically try to plan a mathematical game or activity that involves movement and competition.

Yet sometimes I show an episode of Shark Tank. Again, I give the students worksheets and we do the math that presents itself in each episode. The students enjoy watching it, and some learning still takes place.

I once had an administrator enter my room on the last day of school for a walkthrough. My students were quietly watching the show with their worksheets on their desk. I calmly grabbed an extra worksheet and handed it to my Assistant Principal. I then paused the show at the next appropriate interval to review the math with them on the board as students answered questions on the worksheet. My administrator gave me a very favorable rating on the evaluation.

7) Positive Behavior Reinforcer

As I said, my students love watching Shark Tank episodes (or more accurately, parts of episodes – because we never watch more than 10 minutes before returning to the books).

So, while we do watch it occasionally in class – when we have a few minutes to spare or before a vacation day – my students can earn the privilege of watching this show by meeting certain behavioral expectations.

It’s a win-win for me. The students behave better as they are trying to earn the privilege of watching Shark Tank. And when they do earn that privilege, we simply do more math! They’re learning… and enjoying it!

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THE WORKSHEET

I used to make worksheets for individual episodes that had very targeted questions pertaining to the content in that show. However,YouTube has scrubbed of all such episodes, and they are no longer as easy to find for free on the internet.

ABC.com will allow you to watch several of the most recent episodes for free, with limited commercials – typically it’s just the most recent 3 or 4 episodes.

So now I use a generic worksheet that can be used on any episode. It is available on Rethink Math Teacher’s TpT page. Click here to preview.

As previously mentioned, I do recommend previewing the episodes before showing them to your class just to ensure there’s nothing on them that you don’t want to show to your students.

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