Proportion Explosion

by Jon Orr

Since we are spiralling the curriculum in grade 9 applied, my math task choice is getting very picky! I always want to uncover more that one expectation in a lesson/task! In this task we used volume of spheres, solving proportions, and properties of linear relations.

Act 1:

We took questions and wonderings and then settled on the problem of Let’s see that balloon explode and when is that going to happen?
We guessed and recorded the guesses on our whiteboard for future comparisons!

Act 2: What will we need!

There were good conversations on this piece! I’m always surprised by how much kids know! Someone asked for the rate of water!!!! Wowsers! I assumed I might have to dig to get them to ask for that one. They also wanted me to say how much a balloon will hold…..which is where I wanted to direct them first.

Info to give and record:

As always, I made them guess for it! After revealing 12 inches….we converted to centimeters. Next it was their turn to go ahead and find the volume of the balloon. I find it so valuable to have discussions on why use a sphere to model the volume? Will we be correct? Is it ok we’re wrong?

Volume of the sphere/balloon

Act 2: Rate of Water

 
This is where the kids got lost a bit! They weren’t sure how to use this part exactly after just finding the volume of the balloon.  I stepped in and used some direct instruction on how to set up the proportion. Handout prepared:

Handout

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Solutions

Act 3: The reveal

The extension is how we practiced solving a few proportions. We solved for the volume when the time was 10 seconds, 20 seconds, until kids saw the pattern.

10 seconds

10 seconds

After filling the table out, we found the first differences, discussed direct vs. partial linear relations!

Grab all the files to run in your class:

Apple Distinguished Educator Program

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Thanks for reading!!!

 

Help us Make the Awesome Assessment Tool We All Need!

by Jon Orr

Our semester is now half over and the use of our spreadsheet and mastery learning has been amazing. I didn’t think that the spreadsheet system Kyle and I created back in January,  based on Alice Keeler’s Google Sheet’s and Gamifying the classroom, would have had this much of an impact on student learning. But it did!

We want to take our Assessment spreadsheet for growth learning to the next level!

Students are empowered! They are taking learning into their own hands. They can see on their student view each learning goal (expectation) and their achievement on that goal. They have specific feedback on what to do next! They can access the customized questions based on their skill level and improve! More than before they can see exactly what to do next to get better. Screen Shot 2015-04-16 at 4.20.29 PMHowever, we know that the Master View of the spreadsheet looks intimidating to set up and edit. Screen Shot 2015-04-16 at 4.34.56 PM We have shared this spreadsheet with many educators from all different subjects, and we get the same response “This looks awesome! but…..it’s scary ….what if I delete a cell here or there by accident? Would it mess it all up?”

Answer: It could!

We love this tool….we want to make it better and so much easier to use. That’s where we need help!

We are just regular’ ol’ math teachers.

We imagine this on the web.

We need the help of web programmers.

In the web version:

Students, parents, can log in access and view their achievement. Share it even! A place to capture their learning!

Teachers can log in, track marks, provide feedback, award mastery badges, give next steps, reveal new questions for mastery, point to extra help resources all in one place. They could capture and store student work. Teachers could share learning goals (even whole courses) and the activities/resources they have with other teacher users.

So many tools are out there for assessment. None of them are a complete system. This one is!

We have so many ideas on where this could go….but we are stuck. We need it to be more user friendly.

Please share this out! If you know of anyone who wants to partner up, share our passion and help make this happen as much as we do….show this post to them!

Kyle over on Tap Into Teen Minds has also written a post. Go on over there are read his too!

If you yourself are interested in partnering up with us fill out the form below Let’s make that assessment tool we ALL Need!

Interested in learning how we assess these days?

Learn how to assess for growth through our self-paced online assessment course for math educators.