Grand Theft Lesson Planning

Just finishing the first week back at school and I had to reflect on the changes I made from my previous first weeks. Both as a reminder to me next year, and a way to acknowledge that fact that much of what I do in the classroom can be improved. Here are a few of the things and who I stole them from.

#1) I stole this lesson from dy/dan. He worked it in a little bit different then I did. Infact I paid credit to him in the lesson. Mostly with this photo. I told students this guy I met in Duluth (met meaning heard speak) held the record for most amount of paper clips clipped together in a 24 hour span. I presented the certificate and waited for the questions to poor in.

After battling the "why" questions, which are easilied answered with "I don't know." I challenge them to ask questions we could answer together. Questions about cost came in, about rate/speed, wither we could beat the record. Lot of different ideas, the one I wanted to run with for this lesson was the rate.

Why convert units? Many different reasons but one of the uses on this day was to make the huge (24 hours) into small (a class period). I started putting paper clips together and asked if I would beat the record, students scream YES or NO but it was all feel, it was a judgement call and I wanted to know forsure. We needed to compare rates but our units were not matching. So we converted paperclips per 24 hours to paperclips per 10 seconds. It was a worthwhile introduction to a fairly basic yet sometimes confusing topic.

Wisdom gained: Last year I did a unit conversion for them, then let them work on a few, then gave them a 'challenge' problem. Last year sucked and was boring and students were doing a task that was arbitrary and ugly. They didn't know why they were doing it. Poor lesson.

#2) In the advice of @mpershan I had all my students email me with in the first 3 days. I loved having the connection with the students right away. I made it a point to email everyone back which worked much quicker then it sounds, and I was able to get some good insight from students. I might change the questions I asked next year, maybe add another layer but for now I have everyone's contact and we have something to talk about.

1. Do you have consistent internet access at home? On your phone? Have you followed me on twitter yet?
2. What is one thing you look forward to this school year? What one thing are you going to different from last year?
3. What one thing can I do to make this a successful math course for you this year?

#3) I dusted off a clip I have been using ever since I became a teacher. This is a video from the 1994 classic Little Big League. Billy the new manager of the MN Twins needs to finish up a tough word problem before the big game. He enlists the help of the whole team to crack the classic question "If I can paint a house in 3 hours and you can paint a house in 5 hours how long does it take us to paint the house together?"

If anything an entertaining watch. I pause it after the introduction of the problem, after 'Mac' says "You never told me this was a word problem." I have students write down a number they think is close to how long it will take. I pace the room, have them circle it, verify it with a partner and then we go through the answers the players give and debate wither or not they have used sound reasoning. This is fun cause we separate math and reasoning. I always ask "Does anyone disagree that 3X5 is 15??" "no" "Does anyone think that reasoning is correct..." and so on.

What I particularly like about this part is when one player says 4 hours (an average of 5 and 3). I always have a bunch of students guess 4 here. (reasoning skills) But what is nice about the video is that I ask students why the player is wrong, I am not looking to embarasses the kid with a giant 4 on their paper.

I pause it again before the answer is revealed and let students try to get it down to the minute. With a little guidance most can start to combine the rates and figure it out. (I use a filling the pool metaphor, two hoses one at 27 gal/min the other at 20 gal/min how fast is the pool filling? They seem to understand that we can add those rates, painting a house is harder to visualize.)


Overall a great week, here is to hoping the next is even better.