Whether you call them word problems or real world problems or something completely different, we find that they are a challenge for students. I also experience that if the problems are taken from the textbook, they are not often connected to the real world our students live in.
Dan Meyer, former HS math teacher and currently of Desmos, shares with some humor in this 2010 Ted Talk how math class can be made over, and more specifically the problems we ask. His action steps going forward are to: 1. Use multimedia to bring the real world to your classroom 2. Encourage student intuition 3. Ask the shortest question possible 4. Let students build the steps 5. Be less helpful The best math problems will build as a great story should unfold. If shared right, student will be connecting the pieces and will want to be continuing to each step. This idea and the action steps led to the structure of the 3 Act Math Lesson. An blog post by Dan shortly after his Ted Talk explains the essential components of a 3 Act Lesson. Act 1 - Introduces conflict and allows students to notice & wonder, formulate a question, and ask for additional details that would be helpful in answering the question. Act 2 - Where much of the math happens, students use clues and data to solve the problem. Act 3 - The answer is revealed! Most of our math curriculum hangs out in Act 2, do the math and move onto the next one. Previously I have shared about notice & wonder that are important to Act 1, but the reveal in Act 3 is just as important. Dan says that you certainly wouldn't want to sit through Star Wars Episode 4 and turn it off before the Death Star explodes! The third act is a great reward for the struggle in Act 2. So when do you use the 3 Act Math Lesson? Graham Fletcher suggests a great place to start is pre assessments for new units. The Act 1 is a good hook and more appetizing than a paper pre-test that can further decrease student confidence. During the struggle of the second act, you can formatively assess different student methods and make notes of the current understandings. Finally, Act 3 allows all of the class to wrap up on the same page. Graham has an awesome collection of 3 Act Lessons, ready to go for elementary. They are sorted by grade level and standard. I always start with his collection, but resources are growing as you can Google search 3 Act Math and find many other great math educators sharing their lessons. Here are some examples that we are using as a 5th grade team. Gassed - Multiply with decimals Sugar Cubes - Divide with decimals The Final Lap - Place Value (hyperdoc for students) Graham Fletcher was the presenter at NCTM that I was most looking forward to...and I was not alone. Sharon and I arrived 30 minutes early and we were lucky to find two seats together, the doors were closed shortly after we got settled. The subject of the session was 3 Act Math Lessons and I learned a lot about the structure and delivery of this type of lesson by being a participant. It is a joy to be a student in the room of a stellar teacher. There was much more to learn from Graham beyond the 3 Act strategy, including thoughts on estimation, developing number sense, and whole group engagement.
I will be able to share many notes from this session, but I decided to start with one of the videos from Graham that first caught my eye. After watching the Progression Videos in his Making Sense Series, I knew that he was someone who I wanted to continue to learn with. The videos demonstrate the progression of topics from their introduction to upper elementary. The topics include counting, adding/subtracting, multiplication, division, and fractions. They have been helpful to me, a teacher that has spent all of my time at 5th grade, to see the building of foundations for each student. I have noticed how helpful watching Olivia's progression (through all subjects) has informed my teaching, but these videos allow me to check out the math progression in "fast forward." Check them out on Graham's page here: Making Sense Series Hello math teachers, Welcome back and Happy New Year! I wanted to share some golden nuggets from the NCTM math conference I attended in December. All the sessions I attended were worthwhile. They included many new activities and strategies to deepen student thinking. I don't want to dump too much at once, so I thought I would share a little at a time. Here goes... A session by Tracy Zager (@traceyzager) challenged us to slow down our approach and allow time for students to develop math questions themselves. This doesn't mean to completely #ditchthattextbook, but try sharing the context of a word problem with the question removed. Ask students what they notice about the scenario and then what they wonder. There is a good chance that one of the things they wonder about is the question that is already in the textbook, but there is more student ownership since they are now answering their own question instead of yours. A recent example from 5th grade: One lap around the track is 1/4 mile. Amy ran 13 laps. How far did she run? We just removed the question "How far did she run?" However, enough of our class is going to be curious to ask that question themselves. I already wrote much more than I thought I would at the start, but if you are still with me, Annie Fetter from the Math Forum shares this much better than I do. Click on the link below for the short video (only 5 - fantastic - minutes). As I look into the first week back from break, I am excited to try a couple new things right away. First, I will be using Thinglink as a welcome back activity. I have seen this before at conferences and have downloaded on my ipad before, but had just not seen the application for it. Listening to back episodes of House of Edtech podcast, I got the final push. We will give it a try, and I have some scaffolding set up with Google Slides in case the application does not work.
The big new thing is to try my first 3 Act Lesson in math. I am always reflecting and searching how to make math more engaging and real. While I feel there is more for me to read on the presentation and facilitation, I just need to give it a try. The lesson that we will be doing is from Graham Fletchy and is about racing. I had been playing some Mario Kart with the kids over break and was looking myself at the place value potential when the results are displayed. This lesson puts it all together, and keeping with my flipped theme I have put it into Google Slides. I am excited to read more about the 3 Act Lessons and see how this one goes! |
Matt HawkinsGull Lake Middle School Archives
March 2018
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