Author: Jon Orr

Amazing Race Review Activity

by Jon Orr

We should not attach speed as a factor in our math learning but I love the intensity my students show when we do the Amazing Race Review.

I first saw this activity from a friend of mine Brian McBain. He created a review game where students travelled around the school completing challenges.The first to make it back to the room after completing all challenges was the winner…..just like in the show The Amazing Race.

Today was a review day on trigonometric expressions. I just grabbed some “Knowledgey” questions from the review section of the text. My goal here was to get them to practice the basics. I wanted to provide them some feedback on the application type questions….so i didn’t include them in the race.

I made clues like this…..

A

 

and  like…

Ewhere they are to complete the review question and then use their answer to figure out where to go next.

I also threw in some like….

D

 

 

F

where they had to come back to my room and complete a challenge.

 

Each clue was placed around or in the room indicated. With permission from the teachers of the room the students had to actually go in a classroom and look around for the clue.

When found each clue looked like…

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 2.41.38 PM

 

They had to scan the QR code which revealed the clue.

Making the QR codes is pretty easy…..

1. Take a picture of your clues and put them in a Google Drive folder.

2. For each clue, grab the shareable link and paste it into the QR code generator here: http://www.qrstuff.com/

3. Download that QR code and paste it into a sheet like above. And you’ve got a clue!!!

I staggered the start so each group didn’t just follow each other from room to room. I gave them a recording sheet so they could keep track of their clues and work. I set them off and said “Complete all clues in the correct order and you will be eligible to crack the code for the prize.”

 

Here is the code to crack….

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 2.50.50 PM

 

This years class was pretty intense. The kids were racing each other down the halls and blocking each other from looking at their work. When all groups made it back to the room it was a heated match of “who can crack the code” first!! When finally the group opened the lock …..the class erupted! Some in cheers and some not so much!! You could put anything in that box for the prize and they would be happy!!! Stickers is usually my go to choice!!! Kids have a fun time practicing some skills!!

IMG_2747

 

 

Stacking Cups!

by Jon Orr

So we did Dan’s Meyer’s stacking cups lesson in class today!!!  I first saw this activity from Andrew Stadel in his 3-Act math collection. Not sure who first came up with it though. But thanks to both of you!

I started class by stacking the cups up in front of them…..allowed them wonder what was going on. They had questions like

“What are you doing?

“Are we having Hot Chocolate?”

“Are we going to use them to drink something?”

“What are your doing?????”

“How many cups do you have?”

and “How tall are you in cups?”

and bingo there we go!

I told them that is our task for today…To discover how tall I am in cups! I then had them estimate how many cups it would be! They were uncomfortable to start. They wanted to guess perfectly so they wanted to know how tall I was. They tried to put cups next to me as I walked around. They wanted me to lie down! I said just make an estimate to start off! I wanted them to guess so we had something to compare their final answers to. I wanted them to continually checking their work against their initial guess.

After a few minutes of estimating one group asked: “Are we stacking them like this…..

IMG_2731.JPG

 

or like this…..

IMG_0965.JPGAwesome!!!! I said “Does it matter?” and they all yelled yes!!! So we then agreed that we had TWO problems to solve. So we put up two sets of estimates!!! We decided to stack them like the second picture first!

Estimates

Estimates

I then asked:

“Did you need anything from me?”

they asked for: Rulers, my height, and Desmos!

I gave them all of those things…….everyone wrote frantically when I said I was 183 cm tall!!!

They worked! I saw groups stacking cups, recording values in Desmos, and measuring!

Almost all groups realized that the stack height was only changing by the lip amount and I saw a lot of this…

IMG_2730.JPGwhich had me excited!!! It gave me a chance to say: “Tell me about this, why do you think this is correct?” It was so interesting to hear their responses…..they were convinced they were right so I said let’s plot this in desmos and see if the equation matches the table

Screen Shot 2014-11-12 at 2.44.11 PM

 

Oh!!

They knew they were wrong…..but what was awesome is that they knew how to fix it!!!! Desmos is awesome for this. It’s like a visual self correction machine! We discussed that the start of the line didn’t seem to match up with our points. Then the ahaa! happened.

“We didn’t use the zero row for our start value.” They fixed it and were visually rewarded with a correct answer.

Screen Shot 2014-11-12 at 2.44.30 PM

After our equations were in desmos, the kids dragged their finger along the line until they reached a height of 183 cm and read off the number of cups! For the kids who seemed ahead of the game this was my chance to introduce solving equations by using opposite operations!

Finally we stacked the cups to verify.

IMG_0970.JPG

 

IMG_0969.JPG

Round 2: Stack the cups end to end.

Most groups divided my height with the height of 1 cup…..21 cups….give or take….So great! It gave us context when we discussed opposite operations when solving equations.

Screen Shot 2014-11-12 at 2.45.42 PM

I found it was great that we had two problems in one! We are discussing how to distinguish between partial variation problems and direct variation problems. And here is one scenario where we got to look at each!!! Such a valuable activity!

Oh……did you want to know my height in cups (overlapped)??? —–> 128!

[UPDATE: April 2015]

As an extension use the videos from Andrew Stadel to teach solving linear systems graphically! Access his task here

Below are the list of Ontario Curriculum Expectations covered in this activity—-> Look at them all!!!!

  • pose problems, identify variables, and formulate hypotheses associated with relationships between two variables
  • carry out an investigation or experiment involving relationships between two variables, including the collection and organization of data, using appropriate methods, equipment, and/or technology (e.g., surveying; using measuring tools, scientific probes, the Internet) and techniques
  • describe trends and relationships observed in data, make inferences from data, com- pare the inferences with hypotheses about the data, and explain any differences between the inferences and the hypotheses
  • compare the properties of direct variation and partial variation in applications, and identify the initial value
  • express a linear relation as an equation in two variables, using the rate of change and the initial value
  • describe the meaning of the rate of change and the initial value for a linear relation arising from a realistic situation
  • determine values of a linear relation by using a table of values, by using the equa- tion of the relation, and by interpolating or extrapolating from the graph of the relation.

 

Wouldn’t it be awesome…

by Jon Orr

Desmos,

I can’t stop thinking about the great stuff from Penny Circle, Waterline, Central Park, Desman, and Function Carnival. Specifically the collaboration; the crowd sourcing of data and responses!

In Penny Circle, I love the fact that the student gets to do a few instances of selecting a circle and filling it with pennies. Then the data is grouped with the rest of the class….and voila!! we have a scatterplot!

I would love for this option of crowd sourcing content as a regular option. Wouldn’t it be awesome for when we complete the Vroom Vroom activity or the Barbie Bungee activity that we could ask students to record a few pieces of data in their table….like this,

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 6.23.40 PM

but up on the projector the class sees this?

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 6.23.23 PM

Wouldn’t it also be awesome if I asked the class to draw me a line with slope -2 ….the student would see theirs….

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 6.19.53 PM

but we would all see this?

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 6.20.53 PM

I’ve been using PearDeck for some lessons lately and we’ve been able to crowd source some stuff like..

Put the moveable point on A solution to the inequality f(x) > 40

Day 23 - Pear Deck!!

Day 23 – Pear Deck!!

We’ve also been able to crowd source by the old fashion way…….everyone write their points up on the board then we can all graph. This is still great don’t get me wrong……i’m just wishing!

Wouldn’t it also be awesome when we go to make Math Art with our Function Art project…..we all work together to make a picture like…

Screen Shot 2014-05-13 at 9.53.09 PM

 

I know that Texas Instruments has TI Navigator which tries to link students up ……but in my opinion it’s not as nice or easy as Desmos is to use!!!! Maybe this is already possible in Desmos and I just don’t know it. Or maybe there is something else out there……but I doubt it.

I would love it if my class could all work together…..keep our technology social! These are just some wishes! Love Desmos no matter what!

Changing the Test!

by Jon Orr

I’ve never been comfortable with how we traditionally evaluate students in math. It has bugged me that I test on a specific date, then move on. We tell the kids to not forget that material, but never really give them credit for doing that!

Yet our curriculum documents say we should do otherwise…..

First one,

From The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 11 and 12: Mathematics, 2007 (revised)

Screen Shot 2014-11-02 at 3.12.02 PMThis document DOESN’T say that students will know __________ skill by Nov. 3 (or any other date). We have traditionally done this! We have set a unit test after we have taught the unit…..the student prepares for the test; writes the test……then they concept and skill is not assessed or evaluated formally again until the exam!!!

We’ve got all year/semester to get them to demonstrate these skills. We should have an assessment/evaluation policy that reflects this.

Second one,

From Growing Success:

“The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning.”

and…

Screen Shot 2014-11-02 at 3.01.00 PM

Our main goal should be to help students learn math “better”!!! Our assessments should be apart of this!

Traditional teachers are going to argue “We need to prepare them for university”—- My argument is that I want them to know their stuff well! I want to show them that they can always do a little better. I want their minds to grow, their math knowledge isn’t static. (Also, I remember from my university days, professors saying that if you did better on the final then they would take this mark as your whole mark…..rewarding learning!)

My new philosophy:

Everything is upgradeable!!

Here is what I’ve been doing for grade 12 evaluations lately:

1. I still have the test on test day! No different than before.

2. I mark the test and hand it back. I remind the students that all skills/concepts are upgradeable!!

3. The students then sign up for help/upgrade session at lunch, or down time during class.

The student is to bring their test/evaluation with them….we go over it together discussing missed concepts. We pick together curriculum expectations that they can upgrade.

Say, for example A student received 1 out of 4 on a question testing the skill  “Solving polynomial Equations”. We discuss the mistakes and the students can re-do that question. Once that question is correct I give the student another, new question that tests the same concept. If that student can prove they know the concept two times in a row….then I give the original test marks to the student….they now get 4/4 on that question. (I keep helping and giving questions to the student until they can complete it on their own. )

5. I then go into my markbook and change the marks!

Here is a recording sheet (nothing revolutionary) I use so that I can track their upgrades. Most upgrades span multiple days.

Screen Shot 2014-11-02 at 3.58.36 PM

They can do this for any concept/skill from the test….they can do this for every test.

So can a student get 100% on a test? My answer: Sure! Does every student in my class get 100%  Not even close…. I wish they would! They have that option.

If my students know and can demonstrate the skills and concepts of my course consistently why wouldn’t I give them full marks!!! Their mark is supposed to represent their learning and knowledge…..not their work ethic!

The students’ attitude toward test days have changed. Some are working harder before the test so they don’t have to spend their lunch time upgrading…..some have told me their anxiety towards their tests have been lifted!

Other teachers who helped my with my thinking:

Dan Meyer:  The Comprehensive Math Assessment Resource

Evan Weinburg: Standards Based Grading: Bridging the Gap

Most recently: Mary Bourassa: Rethinking Tests – who inspired me to write this post.

This process is most likely debatable and definitely can be improved upon. I am still learning this process myself and would love to discuss these ideas, so please leave some feedback!