Had a great night the other night with my (almost) 14 year old son. Connor had some math homework (Pythagorean Theorem worksheet from an outdated math series) and I was just looking over his work, making sure he understood the concept. He was coming along ok, I guess, so he finished up and sat on the couch to veg. for a bit.

Now, at first I thought what happened next was fate, but the more I think about it my subconscious probably took over. I checked my email and saw one from earlier in the week that I wanted to look at. It was from Dan Meyer’s blog and had a couple of links that I wanted to check out. After about 20 minutes of looking at some stuff I hadn’t seen before– including Estimation 180 (great site by the way), I stumbled upon Dan Meyer’s Taco Cart Problem again and began to grin.

Since I was on the couch with Connor by now, I showed him the video. When it ended abruptly, he said, “THAT’s IT!” I asked what was wrong. He said, “I want to know who gets there first.” We started to talk about it and maybe 20 minutes passed.  After realizing this was difficult to do with the limited resources we had on the couch, he asked, “Can we go sit at the table and work this out?  These numbers are too big.” I said, “SURE!” (but in a subdued voice so as not to sound “giddy” in front of my teen-aged son).

We sat there for a while talking about what he needed to know.  He knew he needed to know how far each person needed to travel, but didn’t make a connection about what he knew about the Pythagorean Theorem to solve the problem.  Yes, problem solving should be at the heart of every lesson!  He hadn’t been introduced to any ideas about distance and rate, but he knew he needed to know how fast they walked.  We talked about the relationship of distance, rate, and time and how these relationships can be use to find solutions to problems like this one.

After a little discussion and a lot of questions, Connor got to work.  He stumbled with some of the fraction “mechanics,” but with a little questioning, came through just fine.  Connor did more thinking during this task than I’ve witnessed him doing in a long time.  He was engaged from the start and he would not stop until he figured it out.  This is what students need to do all day in math class!

At the end, it was beautiful! He not only solved the problem, but when I asked where the cart should be for both people to get there at the same time, he was ready to go. He marked a new spot, and figured out the new distance. We had to set it aside, though, because it was getting late. He wants to see how close his placement of the taco cart is for the two guys to get there at the same time. We’ll be looking at it again over the weekend!

Kim, my beautiful bride, stopped at the table and asked what he was doing.  He told her, then she asked him if he finished his math extra credit (he doesn’t really need it – it’s just improving his grade, not really improving his understanding of mathematics). I found it a bit humorous because he was learning more doing this problem, than by doing the extra credit sheet of 19 naked equations.  Context and comprehension mean everything in mathematics!

Just before he went to bed, I asked him what he thought about the taco cart problem. He said he wished he got to do those kinds of problems at school instead of the “stupid problems he gets in class.”

Connor just recreated his thinking through the Taco Cart problem below using the Educreations App.  Enjoy!