Final Assignment – Estimation Challenge

June 18, 2015January 28, 2016 by Jon Orr

For our final activity I started the off with this……

we filled in too high, too low, and best guesses! Then we checked the answer…..

Completing this challenge got the students pumped and hooked into doing some math on our very last days of class (especially with some students exempted from the final exam). Our final assignment is to …

We got out the iPads and I let the kids work….. here is what a few came up with:

A lot of kids did water filling or post it note covering estimates. Some kids ended up making an all-out 3 Act math problem.

Zack

How many caps will fill the marker?

Estimate & Answer

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Alexis

How many cups to fill the shape?

Answer:

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Meghan

A 3- act task in Explain Everything:

How many post-its will cover this triangular wall:

Act 1: She put a photo and a small video in Explain Everything to start us off.

Act 2: She provided us with a little more info after we made some guesses.

and

Act 3: Made a time lapse video and provided a screen shot with the answer

Grab her Explain Everything File here

[aio_button align=”center” animation=”none” color=”blue” size=”medium” icon=”download-alt” text=”Grab the EE File” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3zQp-gapBCeVmU2anF4Ty1DOUE/view?usp=sharing”]

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Tiana

How many stickies to fill the door window?

And hit us up with a time lapse video for the answer:

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Celina

How many water bottles will fill the hexagonal prism?

and the answer

Watch the water fill up by grabbing her Explain Everything File

A fun last few days….and I’ve got some new estimates for class next year.

Speedy Squares

May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 by Jon Orr

Last week I attended the annual OAME (Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators) in Toronto. It was so great to finally meet some of the people I’ve been tweeting with.

I was pumped to attend Mary Bourassa’s double session on great classroom activities. One of the activities that I’ve seen on her blog, but not used in my own classroom was Speedy Squares. So when I had an opportunity to try it, I jumped on it!

There is something special about doing the lessons yourself while learning about a lesson at a conference.

It’s @MrOrr_geek doing “speedy squares” at @MaryBourassa ‘s session at #OAME2015 then modelling on @Desmos pic.twitter.com/Xva3lfrgxJ

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) May 7, 2015

Read about the lesson:

You can read about the lesson on her blog here part 1 and here part 2.

[aio_button align=”center” animation=”none” color=”blue” size=”small” icon=”download-alt” text=”Download Now” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://www.dropbox.com/s/4alwa51yhra2wgy/Speedy%20Squares.docx?dl=0″]

The big question: We want to determine how long it will take to build a 26 x 26 square out of link cubes.

More Curious

While actively building the squares I had a great idea to make the introduction to the activity a little more curious! So when I got back to my classroom I broke out the cubes and created this….

Maybe before the time trials of building the squares, we can dive into generating questions and wonderings first.

What is he making?
How many squares will he use?
How long will it take?

Now that we have generated questions….we can then move onto Mary’s awesome two day lesson.

Once students have got an answer to how long they would take to build the 26 x 26 square, you could show the video of me building it!

I’m really interested to see if elementary teachers can use this in their classes and what they come up with!

Apple Distinguished Educator Program

April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 by Jon Orr

Yesterday I received some great news! I was accepted into the Apple Distinguished Educator class of 2015 program.

Last year I was encouraged to apply by a few people. I’m so glad I did because the application process made me reflect on what I do in the classroom. Creating a video to show my story made me think about what it is about using videos, 3 act math tasks, iPads, iTunesU, or any other learning tool in class.

Check out my video on using curiosity & technology to explore, discuss, and do mathematics.
All successful applicants are to attend a 5 day institute in South Florida in July. It will be amazing to meet educators from across North & South America. I’m sure it will be a week of amazing conversations with new ideas and new friends!

Special thanks to:

Sharon Drummond, Kyle Pearce, Rob Policicchio, and my wife, Scarlett for encouraging me to apply!

Dan Meyer, Andrew Stadel, and Michael Fenton and the #MTBos for awesome math lesson ideas and pedagogy ideas! I’ve learned and used so many amazing things from these teachers. Truly wonderful stuff!

I’ll see some of you real soon!

Distance-Time Graphs – Gallery Walk

April 20, 2015October 31, 2015 by Jon Orr

The last few semesters I ran this two-day lesson on distance-time graphs. Today I added a new twist on Day 2.

Recap: Day 1 – A few prediction videos on water height in a cup vs. time. Then WATERLINE by Desmos!

Day 2: Today

Warm Up – We reviewed the previous day’s work by choosing one of the cups from the picture and drawing a water-height vs. time graph.

Not surprisingly, no students chose to draw the graph for the Stanley Cup. After they make their sketches we dove into using the CBR Rangers from Vernier just like on Day 2 from the previous post. They walked in front of the Ranger taking various different walks and we all saw their distance-time graphs in real-time. For each walk the students made prediction graphs on their whiteboards before seeing the live graph.

I wanted more predictions from them so I showed them a video I made. They were to watch the video and make a prediction graph of my distance away from the camera vs. time.

After take up of this graph they were to create their own video on the iPads. Each pair of students we’re given a scenario to film that described motion.

Here are two motion videos they filmed: Very basic to start!

They had to create their distance-time graph and hide it under the flap on the vertical whiteboards.

Pairs then went on a gallery walk. They watched each student made video, graphed the matching distance-time graph and then checked the answer under the flap.

Kids enjoyed it and they practiced lots of different distance-time graphs.

Thanks for reading!!!

Videos

Final Assignment – Estimation Challenge