MEL3E – Day 18

by Jon Orr

Originally I had planned a warm up from Which One Doesn’t Belong on reading clocks.

Instead I changed my mind and we played 20 questions. We played two rounds. The first round I picked an object in the room and the class together had 20 questions to try and figure out what I picked. The second round had them picking an object while I tried to guess it within 20 questions. It’s a fun way to start class which builds a positive atmosphere. Once in a while I pick a math related object.

We used the next 25 minutes to finish our quizzes/assessments from yesterday. I keep forgetting how much time some of my students need to process information. That’s one of the big hurdles for this course. — One student will need only 20 minutes for an activity but 2 students will need 40 minutes. The mastery days have helped with this hurdle. It allows students to work on things they need to work on. Today the students who didn’t need extra time on the quiz worked on finishing up their Bank Search work from earlier this week.

After everyone was finished their quiz we tried to keep going with our Monopoly game from last week. I had taken pictures last week so everyone got back their money and deeds. This time around however was pretty brutal…..hardly any of them were into playing the game. One student was adamant that he was not playing. He did play, but made it clear he was mad during his turn. Everyone had at least two turns today and showed that they could find the tax or discount when needed…….but it was clear that this was stupid. I think it’s time to retire this game!

fullsizerenderTomorrow is a PD here in our board. See you Monday!

MEL3E – Day 17

by Jon Orr

Our warm up today stretched back to our first week of class.

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I’m feeling pretty confident that we are getting better at many of our skills through our warm ups. It was nice to also see the students using appropriate terminology when discussing pay-period.

For the next 35 minutes the students worked on their Mastery work through their portfolio with FreshGrade.

Here is a shot of what they are seeing on their portfolio page. They get to see where they stand on our course expectations, they see evidence of their work for those expectations, and the best part…the next steps. Remember, they get to choose (click on) one of the expectations and attempt new questions to show me improvement. These expectations will be accessible all year…even as we introduce new ones. The portfolio is a great way to document my observations (pictures), conversations (notes or audio), and the work they produce.

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My view of the gradebook on the iPad app is below. As I see improvement (or the opposite) I can click on the current “stars” and update them.

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For the last part of class the students put away the devices and upgrade work and we wrote our second quiz. Not all finished so we’ll finish those tomorrow as we pick up our game of Monopoly from last week.

 

MEL3E – Day 16

by Jon Orr

I’m away from my class today for our first AEAC (Achieving Excellence in Applied Courses) meeting. Our Math department will meet regularly to try to address and fill an urgent student need. More to come later.

Today my class will be with a substitute teacher. The’ll start with completing the warm up from Agree or Disagree Math:

Then they’ll finish working on their Two Truths & One Lie banking research.

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If a student finishes early they are to work on their FreshGrade mastery questions.

 

MEL3E – Day 15 – Two Truths & One Lie

by Jon Orr

The warm up today was a two truths and a lie. I showed this picture and gave these three statements: evernote-camera-roll-20160920-195525

  • Before the discount the price per piece is about $0.18.
  • The new sale price is $46.99.
  • The new sale price will be 60% of the original price.

With their partner and at their vertical surface they were to identify which statements were true and which one was the lie. Most groups completed the unit rate first discovering that it was true that each piece was about $0.18. For many groups I had to re-visit that 40% off meant that you had to subtract $30.80 from the original price….many groups immediately assumed the new price was $30.80. I find this a common mistake! Anyone have success avoiding this mistake? I would love to hear about it. img_2174

Most students didn’t understand what the last statement meant. I found myself using my hands to demonstrate removing 40% of something…..What percent would be left? YES 60%!! I used this idea to show that we can calculate the new sales price using 60% instead of using 40% and then subtracting.

We are moving into the Saving & Borrowing strand today and I wanted to compare banking options. I put up this image and asked “What do you notice”

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We spent about 15 minutes talking about the different things they noticed about the image, which bank accounts they had, and which banks those accounts were at. We finished that talk guessing what the Monthly FEE would be for this account. One student said it had to cost more than a $1 and less than a million! Many students admitted they had a hard time guessing. This concept was completely foreign. Many had not looked at their own bank statements.

We spent the remainder of the class comparing chequing and savings accounts from the different banks. I continued the Two Truths and One Lie idea into this activity.

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For each bank they scanned the QR code — which brought them to the web page that showed the banks accounts options. From there they had to research which statements were true and which one was false for that bank. I found that when they discovered the lie they knew immediately that the other statements were true. I asked them to verify that they were indeed true and they didn’t mind doing that. Next time I think I’ll adjust this to not always have only one lie. Only a few students finished the front side of the page. All will have to finish the back of the page tomorrow:

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On the back they had to visit one of the two banks listed and create two truths and one lie. I’m going to have them trade with a partner and verify which are true and which was the lie.

Happy Monday!