MEL3E – Day 15 – Two Truths & One Lie

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!

 

QR Code Answers: The New Back of the Book

After completing the two Making Algebra Meaningful activities we spent time using algebra tiles to help collect like terms and simplify algebraic expressions. Our math department has sets of these tiles, but over the last couple of years I have used the  Algebra Tiles app from BrainingCamp. It’s a pretty decent app that allows 3 modes. Continue reading