So one thing that intrigued me in class was the soda pop problem. I felt interested and captured the moment the video started. It was so strategically short, simple and to the point that even the student who HATES math would be intrigued by it. I felt like a lot of students would guess that the wider glass had more soda, and even when I showed my engineer partner the video, they too guessed the wider cup only because the real answer they figured wouldn't be so obvious. When I watched the video, it was clear to me that regardless of whether the creator was trying to fool you or not, the skinnier glass clearly had more! Sometimes the answer is just that obvious, and no one is trying to trick you :P
Anyway I took a lot from watching the video clip of Dan Meyer as he explains about the different aspects to creating a good rich task for a student. He explains that there are 3 Acts and though I cannot exactly recall all of them, he says that in order to make a question or problem more alluring, we need to give as little information as possible and make the students figure out what information they need in order to solve the problem. So the idea is that we give them the problem they need to solve first; let them think about it, sit on it, ferment with it, rather than giving them all the information and tools they need and then asking the question in the end, because all the guess work is already done.
Another thing he mentions that intrigued me was the idea of math being credible. So often we do questions in the textbook and look to the back to check whether we answered correctly. Though that can work for some students who don't need that extra motivation, it's not appealing to all students. This idea of "does math work?" is so interesting because I think once students can see for their own two eyes that math is real and legit, they will learn to appreciate it more. So in the water filling example Dan uses, he gets the students to guess how long it will take for the jug to fill. Rather than calculating it and checking your answer, he says, lets actually test it in real life and see what we get. I honestly never thought that something as simple as video taping an experiment would make a difference, but it really does because it puts math into something that is tangible, rather than having it be this abstract thing that doesn't really apply to real life.
Hi Boni,
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how Dan Meyer sets up his problems. At first I was a little hesitant to give students an open ended question. I come from the background of 'here's everything you need, use it, and solve the problem.' I love this shift in teaching, the idea of giving little information and having the students question things. I will definitely put this into practice in the future.
Also, I completely agree with your idea of making math relevant and actually 'doing' the task. It isn't fun to just read about a concept in the textbook. It's ten times more engaging to actually doing the experiment. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas!
I find it interesting that you were drawn right away from the pop can activity. What was it about the activity that intrigue you? Was it a relatable context for you? Was it the thrill of the challenge? Was it the visual display? When developing problems I consistently try and ask myself these questions to Identify the stickable quality. Throughout my study in education there has been a back and forth direction about context of rich assignments. For the first few years of my study there was a push to find new and exciting concepts, materials or forms of media to grab the student's attention. However, over time this idea seemed to change to the point where we as new teachers were asked to assess the true use of technology and other materials in learning for its practicality. When making a lesson plan we were asked whether the context and resources were just used for the sake of using a catch or they were actually meaningful in supporting learning. This is the belief I supported until my thinking was challenged again as V has mentioned quite a few times his personal habit to use any context or materials that arise excitement out of his students. He then states that the math will come later. I was very confused by this at first, going against what I was lead to believe. Yet, through his examples I have come to see the advantage of having fun first and then using the Math to make sense of it all. To my surprise Math can be a very open concept allowing for multiple relations to critical thinking. I do look forward to testing this idea more in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteYour response seem to come true to me. I am one who did do the questions from the text book and check for the answers in the back. Quite often the answers were wrong and no matter how hard I tried to find the solution to the problem I failed which made me very frustrated and despondent. Many times I succumbed to the idea that I cannot do math. When I have to teach math I would spend many long, long hours working so I can appear confident to my student. I used the teacher’s guide and follow it’s every points and instructions, yet I felt overwhelmed as I believe that I should know what I am teaching and how to facilitate my students. I do agree with you that once the students can view math is a living subject they will learn to appreciate doing math. I can now see for myself that and agree with Dan Meyer when he says that we need to give as little information and give the students the responsibility to figure out and solve the problems. I do believe he is saying that we as teachers must make the question open so the students can work from what they already know and build on their own ideas. We had a very good example during one of our class activity. We had to come up with an open question a rich task. I was quite intrigued that my group decided to draw a can of paint and ask the students to paint a room. I observed that the students had controlled of what they needed to do. They (we) came up with so many question about what we needed to know before painting. For example, size of room, amount of paint, how much paint is needed to paint the size of room etc. For me this was very productive as I believe the students (our group) were encouraged to dig into our own minds to figure out what has to be done to get to task done. As we take steps in learning to see math as an integral part of our lives we can become more confident. Thanks for sharing.