No Bikes Allowed
Sparking Curiosity
Students will extend their use of patterning to connect different representations of linear relations. More specifically, students will be exposed to rates of change, calculating the slope of a linear relation, building linear equations, and solving linear equations.The purpose of this Task is:
- to help students develop an understanding of how various representations of linear relations are connected;
- create a linear equation given two points; and,
- solve linear equations.
Intentionality
As is true for any task, the intentionality or learning objective can vary depending on what mathematical thinking you are hoping to elicit.
The mathematical ideas we are trying to elicit when we use this task are connect various representations of linear relations, build linear equations from two or more points, and solve linear equations.
This will be achieved by first having students watch how the cost of renting a scooter is related to the time rented. You can learn more about the actual scooters and the pricing structure at lyft.com.
Spark Curiosity
WARNING!!! Be sure to share with your students the importance of wearing Bike Helmets while riding; we certainly should have. We realize that you may not want to do this activity with your students as a result of our poor judgement.
Show students this video:
Ask students to engage in a notice and wonder protocol. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that comes to mind is fair game.
Here’s some of the “everything and anything” students noticed and wondered on chart paper:
- I noticed that they were riding scooters;
- I noticed that they weren’t wearing helmets;
- I noticed the map;
- I noticed that the cost changes;
- I wonder where that was?
- I wonder how much the scooters cost?
- I wonder what the range means?
Now you can focus in on the big question of the task.
How much does it cost to ride the scooter the entire length of the outlined route?
We can now ask students to make a prediction using their estimation skills. Ensure you use the Too high and too low strategy. Ask them what is a wrong answer? How much would be too high? How much would be too low?
Students will also be uncomfortable here because the length of time of the trip or how the scooter charges customers has not been revealed yet. We encourage you to hold off on revealing these answers because it will build anticipation. Anticipation is what students need so they can start formulating a plan.
At this point, we want to give students the opportunity to improve their predictions by engaging in developing a problem solving strategy.
Ask them: If we are going to improve our predictions what information will we need? Have students share with an elbow partner before sharing this information with the entire class.
As students voice the information they wish to see.
Ask them: “And what would you do with that information if I gave it to you?”
Listen in very closely here. Their responses will give you allow you to assess their prior knowledge and also their thinking into solving this problem.
Slowly Reveal More Information
Once students have asked for information reveal the information that you do have.
Reveal a key fact:
The cost of renting a scooter depends on the time the scooter has been rented for (You may want to reveal depending on your students’ prior knowledge that there is a flat fee to get on the scooter).
Reveal three snapshots showing the cost at different points in the trip. We include three here so that we can verify that the relationship between the cost and the time is linear.
Reveal the total cost of the entire trip.
With this information students can start to develop strategies to determine how much it will cost for a 15 minute and 9 second trip.
Fuel Sense Making:
After consolidating the learning using student generated solution strategies and by extending their thinking intentionally, we can share what the actual cost of the trip was:
30 Days in 30 Minutes: A video series that gives you a glimpse in my classroom.
30 Days in 30 Minutes is a 30-episode video series I’m sharing where I’m sharing 1 minute of each day for 30 days in row. I’ll show you the good, bad, and ugly of a real math classroom where we’re trying to spark curiosity and fuel sense making in our students using our go-to math lesson framework for planning and delivering curriculum effectively.
By sharing my day-to-day experiences I hope that you’ll see a little bit of your own classroom in my classroom and realize that we’re all doing great things for our students to learn better, deeper, and fuel their sense-making.
Below you can watch the days unfold as they happen.
The first video in the playlist will be the most recent day while the remaining videos will start at day 0 and run in chronological order to the most recent day.
Did you miss a day and want to catch up? You can select any day you’d like to see.
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- How To Teach Mathematics Online;
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Free Printable Random Grouping Cards For Math Class
[UPDATED – January 2019]
In my class, most often, I pair students up to work through math problems. I also, most often have less than 24 students. I’ve updated the cards to include a version for ONLY 24 cards and groups of 2. This will make it easier to create different groupings within the same class period without having to give students new cards.
Ready to download these free printable random grouping cards?
There are three copies of the cards.
ONE DESIGNED FOR ONLY GROUPS OF 2, One with equations/expressions and one without (groups of 2 or 3 – 36 cards).
