We’ve heard so much about 3-Act activities. Here’s this week’s experiment, with our verdict at the end.
Show this GIF:
Ask… “Would $1 million fit into a normal briefcase, and if so, could an average adult carry it? Assume the bills are all 100s.
When students asked for more info, we looked up the following (on the internet):
In our last blog, we asked, “How do we humans react to confusion and difficulty?”
How do we humans react to confusion and difficulty?
Welcome to what might be the hardest job in the world to do well.
Continue reading What Does Remediation Look Like? Aka “Bring Your Knitting”
Quiz 2, Trimester 2, as a Word Document:
Question #1: Fractions. Everyone was able to solve this problem correctly! This is huge. Fractions matter.
Continue reading Looking at Quizzes- Part 2 … How are we doing?
Question 1, Fractions. It’s Payoff Time!
We’ve been having students draw fractions only for weeks now. Weeks! We are gradually increasing the difficulty of the questions, to cover addition, subtraction and multiplication of fractions. We assign about 1 problem a day. And… drumroll…90% got this problem right now. It involves multiplication and borrowing! Neither of which we’ve taught. We’ve just given students the tools to make sense of fractions. Continue reading Looking at Quizzes- Part 1 … How are we doing?
Learning is an emotional pursuit. A teacher’s most powerful ally is success. Students who can see (“feel”!) their own progress will bring up the perseverance needed to master each new concept.
However, there are times when math should just be fascinating. When we should all step back and say “Wow”.
There was still confusion after the activity described in our last blog. Normal, but corrigible! We had students draw a Place Value Chart on an 11 x 17 piece of paper. Something like this: Continue reading Group and Independent Practice: Multiplying and Dividing with Powers of Ten
Interestingly, this was one of the most difficult lessons we’ve taught this year, both for teachers and students. There are several possible reasons:
We believe there are 3 non-negotiable skills for fifth graders moving on to sixth grade:
Accordingly, we spend more time on these 3 units than most schools do, although we work in a handful of additional topics as well. The payoff comes later — middle school (and high school!) teachers don’t have to reteach these topics. A goal in itself! Continue reading Starting the Multiplication Unit
These 4 problems actually took a whole period! Problem-solving takes time.
We did this review in groups of 3, with some students rotating after each problem, but the rotation is not necessary. (See Alpha Beta Gamma post from Sept) Rotation breaks up the period with a little movement, and decreases group competition.
VERDICT: The kids have got it now. Continue reading Review Lesson: Fractions, Word Problems and Patterns.