students

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

How Old is The Shepherd? Revisited in 3rd Grade

Over the past few weeks, I’ve shown the How old is the shepherd? problem to both of my kids and then shown them the video  from Robert Kaplinsky’s blog. Both were shocked at how many students don’t pay attention to what is happening in the problem.  Connor even said, “I guess I’m not one of the 24.”

Here is my son, Connor, with his response to the problem:

Unfortunately, his first statement, “That’s stupid!” was not caught on video!

My daughter, Lura, with her response:

Last Saturday, after ambushing one of my daughter’s friends with the problem while she was visiting, Kim (my wife) became more curious about the problem, so I showed the video to her and shared some of the data on Kaplinsky’s blog. She was also shocked at the results.  We had a brief conversation that went something like this:

Me: This is why we need to teach math content through patient problem solving and sense making!

Kim: Ok. (with a look that says, I know you’re passionate about this, and that it’s important. We’ll talk later. Go make a 3-act video and post it to your blog.)

Me: Ok.

It was left alone until this morning. It’s just me, but I like to think we would’ve talked sooner if I hadn’t been fighting a cold. She texted me and asked me to send her the Shepherd problem. I did, but only with the requirement that she share what she does with it.

Kim (and her co-teacher) gave the problem to each of their students and I just received the results:

  • 3 out of 19 students made sense of the problem (15.8%)
  • One student added 125 five times.
  • One student reasoned that by the time you had 5 dogs and 125 sheep, you have to be in your fifties.
  • One student divided 125 by 5.
  • 6 students added 125 and 5 to get 130.
  • 3 computed an operation with the two numbers incorrectly
  • The other students guessed or showed no reasoning.

Now the good stuff:

  • One student (an autistic child) shared his reasoning about the problem with his classmates:

“The shepherd has no-o-o-othing (said as a sheep might say it) to do with the sheep and the dogs.”

  • Both teachers lost it!

Take aways from this:

  • It’s best that we start teaching math content through problem solving early and consistently K-12 and beyond.
  • Making sense of mathematics needs to be a priority for all students. (SMP 1)
  • All students bring something of value to a classroom.
  • Stories like the student who shared his reasoning sometimes get us through days that are not so much like this.

Below, you will find some of the students’ reasoning.

How old is the shepherd_