Learning

Transparent head silhouette with interlocking gold and silver gears inside representing brain function

Connecting Numeracy and CT: The Structure was Always There – Part 3
Transparent head silhouette with interlocking gold and silver gears inside representing brain function

In the last two posts (Part 1 and Part 2), we looked at what fluency actually is and the three structures that sit underneath it. In this post, I want to make a connection that might surprise you.

Those same three structures — place value, properties of operations, and equivalence — are also at the heart of computational thinking.

I know. Stay with me.

What is Computational Thinking, Actually

Computational thinking isn’t about coding. It’s about a particular way of approaching problems — one that computer scientists and mathematicians have always shared. It has four moves:

  • Decomposition — breaking a complex problem into smaller, manageable parts
  • Pattern recognition — noticing what stays the same across different contexts
  • Abstraction — stripping away surface detail to see the underlying structure
  • Logical sequencing — ordering steps where each one depends on the one before

Sound familiar? It should. When a student solves 27 × 4 by breaking it into

20×420\times 4

and

7×47 \times 4

they are decomposing. When they notice that the same move works with 27 × ¼, they are recognizing a pattern across abstractions. When they express that as a(b + c) = ab + ac, they have abstracted. These aren’t separate skills layered on top of mathematics. They are mathematics — the structural kind.

Where Numeracy Fits

Numeracy is what happens when a student can take those structures into the world and use them confidently. Not just in a math class, on a familiar problem type, with a procedure they’ve practiced. But in a grocery store, a spreadsheet, a situation they’ve never seen before.

That flexibility — the ability to deploy structure in unfamiliar contexts — is what separates a student who has memorized math from a student who understands it.

So fluency, numeracy, and computational thinking aren’t three different goals pulling in different directions. They’re three expressions of the same underlying capacity: the ability to reason from structure.

What this Means for Teaching

If the structures are the through-line, then the question worth asking about any lesson, any task, any resource is: does this make the structure visible?

Not just — is it a good activity? Not just — will students enjoy it? But: will students walk away having experienced something about how numbers behave that they can carry forward? Will they be able to use that understanding the next time they encounter something unfamiliar?

That’s the goal. Not fluency for its own sake. Not computational thinking as a trendy add-on. But students who see the structure — in numbers, in patterns, in problems they’ve never met before — and know what to do with it.

And when those students finish a challenging task and they tell you they want to do more — because somewhere along the way, they started asking “What if…?”, run with it. They’re posing rich questions and ideas to explore because they’re curious. Many of their ideas will likely involve some mathematical modeling. Another huge win.

So, the end of the lesson is not, necessarily, the end of a lesson. But it is the beginning of a mathematician.

Connecting Numeracy and CT: The Structure was Always There – Part 1

When students compute, are they executing steps or reasoning from relationships? Most of us were taught the former. But the latter is where mathematical power lives.

Feel the Structure

We all want our students to become fluent with facts. There are many ways we can try to get them there. Some focus on strategy development and building mathematical relationships. Others focus on speed and memorization. One way builds confidence and connections. The other creates anxiety.

To build fluency, we need to understand what it is.

If fluency is represented by this walnut.

When students are able to apply strategies to multiple contexts to solve problems, they are fluent. They are also working their way toward numeracy: having the confidence to use basic maths at work and in everyday life.

Let’s look at some ways to solve 27 x 4:

What’s the underlying structure of each? They all break the factors into friendlier numbers and multiply, then put them back together. Decomposing and Composing. All with the underlying structure of the Distributive Property. One uses the Place Value structure as well (top left). Another also uses Equivalence as a structure (bottom left). But all use the structure of distributive property. Naming the property isn’t something students in grades 3 -5 need to focus on. They just need to understand what’s happing and apply it.

Sometimes teachers go with timed tests rather than focusing on strategies because they think that the strategies are replaced by fluency. It’s not really the strategies, though. It’s the underlying structure of these strategies. And fluency doesn’t replace the structures, it compresses them.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the three big structures that encompass all of K-5 mathematics.

Resources for ‘What if…?’

What if you wanted to learn more about incorporating What if…? into your mathematics teaching routine. You’re in the right place. Below, you will find some resources to help you get started. Click here to share your thoughts or ask a question.

You’ll need to start with a rich task. I’ve listed some other great resources for these types of problems at the end of this post. Below you will find some structures to use to support students as they begin to think in terms of What if…?

Helpful tips:

  • Provide students with time to think privately about one of the questions in the template.
  • Provide students with time to talk with a partner/group about their What if…? ideas.
  • When it’s time to share as a class, be patient. It may take a minute to get sharing started – especially if this is the first experience with What if…?

Other resources for rich tasks:

Share your experiences, questions, and comments about using What if…?. Keep the conversation going.

What is Mathematics?

In my previous post, I shared my personal experience with playing with mathematics as a child. That reflection prompted some digging about when we as humans begin to think mathematically, and I found something fascinating:

Experimental research shows that infants as young as 6 months have the ability to:

  • recognize the approximate difference between two numbers
  • keep precise track of small numbers, and
  • do simple subtraction and addition problems.

And when babies are mathematizing like this, they activate the same parts of the brain that are associated with mathematical thinking and reasoning in adults (I told you this was fascinating). So, before we can even speak, we have the ability to quantify. Our inherent curiosity and ability to think and even reason mathematically is on display here.

The idea that teaching and learning mathematics isn’t just computation, that it involves sense-making through reasoning, is research-based and builds on the natural curiosity, and the mathematical ideas and abilities we possess at a very young age. 

Mathematics helps us make sense of and explain the world around us. It is the science that deals with the logic of shape, quantity, and patterns. Mathematics is a subject created based on the need to solve problems and, in my opinion, should be taught that way. It’s a beautiful, creative, and fascinating subject with applications in every field: teaching, economics, engineering, biology, chemistry, physics, entertainment, shipping, food service, geography, geology, technology, real-estate, and politics, to name just a few.

The common myth is that mathematics = computation. While computation is embedded within mathematics, it is really a very small part of a greater whole. The strong, flexible core of mathematics is all about reasoning and sense-making. The “computation part” of mathematics can be taught with this strong, flexible core in order to make sure that the computation students learn makes sense so that it can be applied to solve problems in the real world. 

Ultimately, mathematics is about sense-making. The mathematics we use today to solve problems was developed by creative thinkers who asked questions like. “What if…?” “Maybe we could try…?” and “I wonder what would happen…?”  This creative thinking is still happening today to solve problems like coastal erosion from tropical storms. You, your students, or your children can be one of these creative thinkers that uses mathematics and mathematical modeling to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Let’s keep students thinking about mathematics as much as possible!

Revisiting 3-Act Tasks

My lessons never stay the same.  They’re always evolving.  Recently, I’ve taken a look at some 3-Act Tasks I created and I noticed:

  • Some of the tasks are lacking an act.
  • Others have resources that no students ask for (at least students that I’ve worked with).
  • The quality is low (shaky camera, point of changes, etc.)

So, I finally had a minute (read 2 days) and revisited each.  Below, you’ll see the tasks I’ve chosen to revisit.  An explanation of the original, what I changed, and why I changed it follows.  If you’d like to skip this and get to the revisited tasks, click here.

Revisited #1 – The Candy Bowl

My very first attempt at a 3-act task was the Candy Bowl task.  I was working in an elementary school at the time and Graham Fletcher had created problem to get 2nd and 3rd grade students reasoning about subtraction by removing the numbers from the problem context.  His context involved the lunchroom and numbers of students in three classes.  We talked on the phone about this for a while and though I liked the problem, I wasn’t crazy about the context.  I sat in my room trying to think of a context that would be a bit more engaging for students to think about.  And the Candy Bowl was created.

 img_4224

It was a good problem, but it really lacked one of the most basic parts of a 3-Act Task… The third act.  The reveal was weak, because it relied on the teacher to give students validation.  The updated version, which had to be done from scratch (apparently whoppers candies are no where to be found anywhere near Valentine’s day), can be found here with all new updated resources for Act 2 and new video including two reveals, depending on which question students decide to tackle.

Revisited #2 – Sweet Tart Hearts

Another one of my early tasks was Sweet Tart Hearts.  I really liked this one from the beginning. There is a huge focus on estimation which allows for students to obtain solutions that are close, but not exact in most cases.  This also allows for the teacher to facilitate a discussion about why answers may not be exact for a variety of reasons.  But again, it really lacked that third act.  The task was good, but the closing of the lesson was weak due to the fact that the students were relying on the “all knowing” teacher to give them affirmation.

screen-shot-2017-02-12-at-2-58-35-pm

Apparently Sweet Tart Hearts are a hot commodity a few days before Valentine’s day.  I went out the other day for a quick run to pick up a bag.  I had to go to 4 stores and finally found a bag (the last one).  I thought it would take about 10 minutes to do this revisit.  Surely the  numbers for the colors would be similar to the last time.  Not only was that not true, but Sweet Tarts changed the orange hearts to yellow!  But, the revisit is all done and I’m very pleased with the new reveal which allows the video to reveal the answer and the teacher to focus students on the reasonableness of their solutions.

Revisited #3 – The Penny Cube

My final revisit is the Penny Cube.  It is probably my favorite task.  I’ve certainly heard more from teachers about this task than any of the others.  I think I got the reveal right on this one.  The problem I found with this task was that I thought students would ask for things that I would want.  The first time I did this task with students, I guided them to the information I had ready for them.  They didn’t care anything about the dimensions of a penny.  They just wanted some pennies and a ruler.  It’s amazing what you learn when you listen to students, rather than try to tell them everything you think they need to know. So, to all of the students out there, Thank you for making your voices heard!

screen-shot-2017-02-12-at-3-02-06-pm

So, this was the quickest fix.  I just updated the Penny Cube page (all of the coin specifications are still there – in case anyone wants them).

Note:  In this post I share how I changed my approach to teaching the Penny Cube task. 

So, it took a few days, but I’ve revisited some tasks that have been bugging me for a while and I hope it’s for the best.  I know I’ll probably give these another look in the future.  I’ll just need to start in early January to make sure I get the candy I need.

Desmos Math Addiction

Hi, my name is Mike… and I love using Desmos with students.

This is not a bad thing at all.  I’m not giving up time with my family to spend on Desmos. It’s just that whenever I think I’ve exhausted all of the ways to use this fantastic tool with students, the Desmos team adds a new activity or game that I can and want to use right away!  These people know how to keep us wanting more!

Here you can find out what Desmos is all about!

Now, for all of you teachers out there that haven’t engaged your students in this amazing math tool, let me move from a user to a pusher.  4 reasons why you should use this amazing tool with your students:

crazy about math

  1. It’s completely free!  (not just this first time – all the time)
  2. It’s a graphing calculator that works beautifully online or as an app for students to Model with Mathematics – SMP 4.

This is a screenshot of how my son, Connor, used the Desmos Calculator to make sense of transforming quadratic functions.

Screen Shot 2016-01-02 at 3.43.34 PM

3.  When you sign up as a teacher (again, for free) you can assign activities and games (yep, they’re all free to use, too) to your students and you can check their progress from your teacher page.

So, beyond the graphing calculator – which is amazing on its own – as a teacher you can assign an activity to your students based on the content they are investigating. Try Central Park  – it’s my favorite activity.  (If you like, you can go to the student page and type in the code qqbm.  I set this up for anyone reading this post. Feel free to use an alias if you like).

And as far as games go, check out Polygraphs.  It’s like the Guess Who? game for math class. Trust me, your students will love it and there are polygraphs for elementary as well as secondary. The polygraphs are all partner games, so students will need to work in pairs.  I’ve even made a few:

Polygraph: Teen Numbers

Polygraph: Inequalities on a Number Line

Polygraph: Geometric Transformations

4.  As you get sucked in to this tool, you may begin to think to yourself, “Boy, I really wish there was an activity for ______.  If only knew how to create an activity for my students to use on Desmos.” That’s taken care of, too, with Activity Builder and Custom Polygraph (and, yep, you guessed it – they’re free to use, too)

And before you begin to doubt whether you can create an online activity or polygraph, the Desmos team has already taken steps to make this extremely teacher friendly.  Before you know it, you’ll have your own Desmos activity published!

Finally, as a great end of year gift, Dan Meyer blogged about the latest from Desmos – Marbleslides.  If this doesn’t get you to use Desmos with your students. . . well, I’m sure they will think of something else, soon. But seriously, try this out.  I have re-learned and deepened my own understandings of mathematics by trying and reflecting on many of these activities and games, and then having my own kids do them (and then they ask me why their teachers aren’t using them – “Can you talk to them, Dad?”).  The conversations will be happening this semester for sure!

Screen Shot 2016-01-02 at 5.22.36 PM

But the best part about all of this is that students get to use the calculator to investigate graphs and compare graphs and equations/functions.  They get to notice and wonder about what matters and what changes a graph’s slope, and y-intercept for linear functions and what changes the vertex and roots of parabolas.  They get to investigate periodics and exponentials and rationals and so much more.  They get to engage in activities and games that have components that ask them to reflect on what they’ve learned in the games and activities themselves.  The students are doing the mathematics.

Then, in class, we get engage students in talking about the math they’ve investigated!  How sweet is that?

You see, as great as Desmos is, it can’t take the place of great teaching.  It’s a tool that can help us become better at our craft and help our students gain a deeper understanding of mathematics!  Sounds like a win-win!

So, I guess I don’t have a Desmos math addiction.  Addictions have adverse consequences and I see none of that here!  I just have – as we all do thanks to Desmos – access to a powerful mathematical learning tool!  Thank you Desmos.  I can’t wait to see what’s coming next!

Filling Gaps: Buy a Program or Help Teachers Grow?

This post actually started as a rant as I was sitting through meeting after meeting with really nice people trying to sell products to “Fill the Gaps.”  So, if it has a rant-y feeling, just know where I’m coming from.  If no one really likes this, that’s ok.  At least it’s out of my system for now.  You see, when you’re “invited” to attend meetings to raise student achievement, you really need to show up, or who knows what will  happen.  So, in the effort to stand up for teachers and students, I attended all of them.

Man shouting, pulling hair

These were really nice people presenting to us, and they were very passionate about their products.  I even largely agree with several of them on their basic philosophy.

At least one of the people listening with us in the room was sold on many of the ideas before we even started these meetings.  Every slide or picture shown was met with a “That’s good!” or a “That’s really good!”  I think if they showed us a shiny, new penny, this person would have said, “This is what our students need!” with the same reaction!  The pictures of bulletin boards showing concept maps and vocabulary word walls and even students working may be good – or may not.   Really, there’s no way to tell – especially with the picture of the students working.  What were the students saying?  Were they discussing mathematics?  Were they using the vocabulary on the bulletin board?  Were they making connections to the concept maps?  Did they give and receive feedback about their work?  Let’s see some video, so I can see how this is really working.

expresspicture_slider

Again, philosophically I agree with their framework of instruction.   However, the product is not really necessary if the PL these companies are willing to provide is effective.

Now, on to the PL.  Lots of good strategies offered here.  And more pictures of students “engaged.”   My question:  what are the students engaged in?”  Are they engaged in the mathematics or the product?  My initial response to this self-posed question was:  Does it really matter?  The students are working.  After  thinking about this for just a few seconds, though, I can say without a doubt that it does matter!

Engaging students can be tricky.   A passerby, seeing students working silently in their seats, might conclude student engagement in a task.  A passerby, seeing and hearing students discussing a task, may conclude non-engagement in a task as well as lack of classroom management.  Really it’s hard to tell, in either case, whether there was any engagement or what kind of engagement there was.

310914-3x2-940x627

Students in the sixth-grade Harlequin Team from Paris Elementary School work on a math problem. Clockwise, from front left, are Abby Steeves, William Dieterich, Annie Choi, Katerina Crowell, Halie Page and Sebastian Brochu.

So, what does engagement mean?  It depends on what you want.  One of my goals year after year is to engage students in the mathematics they’re studying.  When I first started teaching, I wanted students to just be engaged, no matter what.  As I think back, they were engaged – probably in my educational “performance.”  I was the “fun” teacher that did crazy math lessons.  As I grew professionally, my lesson focus evolved to take the students’ engagement away from me and toward the mathematical content.  So, why is it so important?  If students are engaged in creating the product (creating a poster, making a presentation, etc.)  they may be learning mathematics, but how do we know.  I’ve seen students engaged in creating beautiful products and walk away with little mathematical understanding.  I’ve also seen students engaged in mathematics and creating not so beautiful products, but beautiful understandings and mathematical connections.

So, for all of the professionals in the room thinking this (or any of the other presentations we’ve seen) is the silver bullet. . . It’s not.  The only silver bullet out there that’s going to raise student achievement is teacher PL grounded in  understanding mathematics conceptually and building teachers’ pedagogical understandings and strategies.  If we want high achieving students, we have to help teachers achieve their greatest potential.  No program out there will do that, but if you really want to become a better math teacher, Twitter and the #MTBoS are a great place to start!

Unlikely Students in Unknown Places

I recently got back from Santa Fe.  I was attending a conference there for a few days last week and afterward, I drove to El Paso to visit my brother’s family (he’s currently stationed in the middle east so I didn’t get to see him – unless you count face time) for a day before flying home.

Let me preface this story by saying that we all probably have a story similar this, but how we handle it can be a possible game changer.

Somewhere on my long drive, I stopped at a fast food restaurant to grab a quick bite.  So, I went inside and got in line.  The following outlines the beginning of our interaction as I stepped to the counter:

Cashier:  May I take your order?

Me:  Yes, please.  I’d like a number 2.

Cashier:  Large or medium.

Me:  Medium, please.

Cashier:  (after pushing more buttons than is conceivably necessary to enter my choice of “medium”): Your total will be $6.05.

I dug through my wallet (receipts from the trip and everything) and found that all I had was a $10 bill, so I handed it to her.  She entered $10.00 correctly and the correct change of $3.95 showed up on the little screen.  At just about that point, I remembered that I had a bunch of change in my pocket and said quite enthusiastically, “Oh, wait, I think I have a nickel.”  Who wants to carry around $0.95 in change in their pocket.

The cashier didn’t miss a beat, and said, “So, your change will be $4.00 even.”  I kind of smiled as I continued to look through my change, proud that she had a mental strategy to adjust to the situation and that she seemed quite confident and comfortable using it in this situation.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a nickel, but I still didn’t want change falling out of my pocket into the depths of the rental car, never to be seen by me again.  So, I told her, “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have a nickel, but I do have a dime.”

As I handed her the dime, I saw her face morph from a confident smirk to a confused, almost terrified look of despair .  I had just taken her from a mathematical point of “Yeah, I can do this math stuff.  I may not use the computer for the rest of my shift” to “Holy $#!+, what the #=|| just happened!”

I went into math teacher mode and waited patiently for her to begin breathing again.  And then I waited for her begin thinking.  She adjusted my change with my introduction of the idea of a nickel, why not a dime? After what seemed like 5 minutes (probably more to her), it was painfully obvious to all around that her anxiety in this situation was taking over her ability to tackle this problem. So, I tried to think of a “least helpful question” to ask.  Now I put myself on the spot.  If she only knew that we were both now feeling some of this pressure.

So, I finally asked her my question and she gave me the correct change within a few seconds.  She smiled as she gave me my change and my new “unknown” student and I parted ways.  I know I felt good about helping someone develop a strategy outside of the classroom.  I hope she had a similar feeling about learning to make sense (no pun here) of making change.

Being a math teacher is a 24-7 job sometimes and we can find our students anywhere – even in a fast food restaurant in New Mexico!

What you would have asked the cashier in this situation.  I’d love to hear what your “least helpful” question would have been. No pressure, take as long as you like.  No one is waiting in line behind you!

Feed the hungry!

Oh, here’s my question:  “If you could change the dime into some other coins, what would you change it for?”

Math: A Fun After Homework Activity

All week long I’ve been asking Connor, my 9th grade son, what he has been working on in coordinate algebra.  Here’s a snippet of a recent conversation:

  • Me:  So, Connor, what have you been working on in your coordinate algebra class?
  • Connor:  We’ve been graphing.
  • Me:  Graphing what?
  • Connor:  Graphing different lines.
  • Me:  What kinds of lines are you graphing?
  • Connor:  Ummmm…
  • Me:  Are they linear functions.
  • Connor: Yeah, there are linear functions, but we also do curves…
  • Me:  Like what kind of curves?
  • Connor: Umm… exponents
  • Me:  Ok.  Anything else?
  • Connor: Umm…
  • Me:  Hey, I want to show you something. . .

Versions of this conversation happened several times this week.  Due to soccer practices, games, homework, and Life in general, we never got much past Connor’s last “Umm…”

Until yesterday!  The conversation changed a bit:

  • Connor:  We did something cool in class today.
  • Me:  Oh, yeah?  What was it?
  • Connor:  We had to build a picture using graphs of different lines.  We built a shamrock.
  • Me:  That’s what I’ve been meaning to show you all week.  Go grab my laptop.
  • Connor:  (playing game of war on an ipad) But I finished my homework.
  • Me:  Just take a look at this for a few minutes and see what you think.
  • Connor: (heavy sigh)

Enter Des-Man from Desmos.  Once he had gone through the tutorial, he was hooked. . . for a while!  He engaged in this for about 2 1/2 hours.  When he wanted to make something happen, but didn’t know how, he would come to me and ask.  We’d figure it out together.  The best part of this whole experience was when he realized he knew how to create something on his own and went to his math work from class as a reference.

Fast forward to 2 1/2 hours later, when Connor finished his Desman.

Des-man

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see the picture in detail along with the equations Connor used to create this graph, click Connor Face Graph.

It didn’t stop there.  I had some tabs open and clicked on one with the In-N-Out Burger task from Robert Kaplinsky.  He was curious enough to work through it even after all of the Des-man work.  So, I showed him more by clicking on the Open Middle tab (also from Robert Kaplinsky).  I selfishly pulled up the task that I wrote in collaboration with Graham Fletcher called The Greatest Difference of Two Rounded Numbers.  After making sense of the problem, and a lot of eye opening moments that led to phrases like “Oh, I can make it larger!” He got what he thought was the final answer and we validated his reasoning by clicking on the answer.  A slight smile!

So, we’re looking at close to 3 hours of after homework math investigation that ranged from rounding numbers to graphing equations, and solving problems.  Sounds like a great evening to me.  Great conversations and fun while learning and reinforcing mathematics understanding!  What could be better?  Talking Math With Your Kids – High School Edition.

Feed the hunger of all ages!

More with Connor:  Real Math Homework and Real Learning

Connecting Percents and Fractions

Not understanding mathematics can be extremely frustrating for students.  As a teacher, figuring out how to help students understand mathematics can be just as frustrating.  My primary go-to resource for these situations is Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics, by John Van de Walle et. al.  because it’s all about focusing on big ideas and helping students make sense of the math they’re learning in a conceptual way.

Recently, I was asked to model a lesson for a 6th grade class who was having difficulty working with percents.  So, I turned to my go-to resource, and during planning, I realized that I didn’t know anything about these students other than that they were struggling with percents.  So, I couldn’t assume anything.  I ended up creating three separate lessons and combined them into 1.

First, I handed groups of students a set of Percent Cards and Circle Graph Cards.  Their task was to match the percent with the corresponding circle graph.  As students were working on this, I heard groups reasoning about how they were matching the cards.  Many started with benchmarks of 25%, 50%, and 75%, while others started with the smallest (10%) and matching it to the graph with the smallest wedge.  As groups finished, they were asked to find pairs, using the matches they made, that totaled 100%.  Once finished, a discussion about their process for completing these tasks revealed a solid understanding of percent as representing a part of a whole.

Now to shake their world up a bit.  I asked them to leave their cards because they would be using them again shortly.  I introduced these Percent circles and asked them what they were.  A brief discussion revealed some misconceptions.  Some students said they were fractions, others said they were wholes because nothing was shaded.  I altered my planned line of questioning to questions that eventually led to a common understanding of what fractions were and how the pictures of the fraction (percent) circles really showed wholes and parts (fractions).

Their next task was to match their cards with the equivalent fraction circle.  This was incredibly eye-opening. Groups began to notice that some percent card matches could fit with multiple fraction circles (50% could be matched with the halves, quarters, eighths, and tenths).   Thirds and eighths were the last to be matched.  But their reasoning didn’t disappoint.  One group noticed that the percents ending in .5 all belonged with the eighths because they were too small to be thirds (the other percents with decimals).

Students were eager to share their thoughts about what they learned about fraction circles and percents:

  • Fractions and percents are the same because the pieces look the same.
  • 1/4 is the same as 25% and 2/8
  • I don’t get why the eighths end in .5.
  • The percents all can be fractions.
  • 1/8 is 12.5% because it’s half of 25%

Finally, I asked students to solve a percent problem (now that they’ve all realized that fractions and percents can be used interchangeably).   I gave them the m & m problem from this set of percent problem cards.  The only direction I gave was that they had to solve the problem using some representation of the percent in the problem before they wrote any numbers.

My bag of M&M’s had 30 candies inside.  40% of the candies were brown.  How many brown candies is that?

While this was problematic at first, students looked at their fraction circles and percent cards and realized they could use four of the tenths since each tenth was the same as 10%.  Most students needed just one “least helpful” question to get on the right track:  Where do the 30 m & m’s belong in your representation?

Most groups were able to make sense and persevere to solve the problem correctly, and explain why they “shared the 30 m & m’s equally among the ten tenths in the fraction circle” and why they “only looked at four of the tenths because that’s the same as 40%.”

My beliefs that were reinforced with this lesson:

  • We can’t assume understanding from correct answers alone.  We need to listen to students reason through problematic situations.
  • Students really want to share their thinking when they realize that someone is really interested in hearing it.
  • Students crave understanding.  They really want to make sense.
  • Procedures are important, but not at the expense of understanding.
  • Empowering students by allowing them to build their own understanding and allowing them to make connections allows students to feel comfortable taking risks in problem solving.

Please take a look at Jenise Sexton’s recent blog about percents with 7th grade students for some fantastic ideas about students using number lines and double number lines to solve percent problems.  It’s SWEET!