Category: tasks

Solid Fusing Task

The progression followed by most teachers and resources during the study of surface area and volume is identical. Like a intravenous drip, concepts are released gradually to the patients so as to not overdose them with complexity. Begin with the calculation of 2-dimensional areas, and then proceed to the calculation of surface area of familiar prisms. (I say prisms, so a parallel can be drawn to the common structure for finding the volume of said prisms. That is, [area of base x height]). In this way, surface area is conceptualized as nothing more than a dissection of 3-dimensional solids into the now familiar 2-dimensional shapes.

factors probability tasks

100 Rolls Task

**Update November 2020. Jamie Mitchell–a fantastic teacher from Ontario, Canada–sent me this google doc that his student prepared to justify her solution. After you wrestle with the prompt for a while, take a second to read this brilliant response!

Most probability resources contain a familiar type of question: the two-dice probability distribution problem.

Often times, it is accompanied with questions concerning the sums of the faces that appear on each dice.

For example:

Roll two fair, 6-sided dice. What possible sums can be made by adding the faces together?

What is the probability that:

a) the sum is 6

b) the sum is a multiple of 4

c) the sum is greater than 15?

equations estimation games pattern reflection stations tasks

TDC Math Fair 2016: A Summary

Post author By natbanting
Post date June 29, 2016
3 Comments on TDC Math Fair 2016: A Summary

Background:
On June 15th, my Grade 9 class and I hosted our second annual math fair. What started out as a small idea has grown into a capstone event of their semester. This year, we had 330 elementary school students visit our building to take part in the fair’s activities. Several people (following the hashtag #TDCMathFair2016) commented that they would like to do similar things with their student transitions. This post details the rationale behind the event, how we structured it, what stations we had, and feedback/advice from our exploits.

numeracy systems of equations tasks

MVPs and Fair Teams

You will not catch me claiming that problems need to be real world in order to be relevant. I would much rather think of classroom materials as either mind numbing or thought provoking. This continuum can be applied to hypothetical, practical, or genuine scenarios (a classification system neatly summarized in a chart in this article).

I see the greatest potential in scenarios that provide elegant entrance to mathematical reasoning. If it happens to contain a real world context, fantastic. Either way, it needs to be thought provoking.

fractions inequalities problem posing tasks

Fraction Task Testing

The testing of a task went horribly right.

Background:

Graham Fletcher (@gfletchy) tweeted an Open Middle (@OpenMiddle) prompt for comparing fractions.

surface area tasks whiteboards

Double House Task

Surface area is intuitive. Intuition is a natural hook into curiosity. When you think something might (or should) be the case, it begs the question, why? It just seems as though textbooks haven’t gotten wind of that.

Perusing the surface area chapter of the assigned textbook for my Grade 9 math class offers a steady diet of colourful geometric solids all mashed together (at convenient right angles) in various arrangements. Without fail, the questions ask the same thing:

Find the surface area of…

inequalities linear functions systems of equations tasks

Candies, Pennies, and Inequalities

Post author By natbanting
Post date February 12, 2016
4 Comments on Candies, Pennies, and Inequalities

I want students to solve systems out of necessity.

I want them to feel the interconnectedness of the two (or three) equations. In the past, I’ve asked small groups to build a functional 4×4 magic square. Soon they realize that changing a single number has multiple effects; this is the nature of the system. Unfortunately, abstracting the connections results in more than two variables. This year, I wanted to create the same feeling with only two variables. (The familiar x & y).

Enter: Alex Overwijk.

discourse fractions ratios routine tasks

Fraction Talks

Discussion is one of the organic ways through which human interaction occurs, but not all discussion is created equal in the math classroom. The tone of discussion relies on the mode of listening (Davis, 1996). Most classroom talk focuses on an evaluative mode of listening. Students are expected to share, compare, and contrast solutions to problems.

I do think that justification of their solutions gets at some important points regarding mathematical reasoning, but would like to move the discussion to center around that exact feature–the reasoning.

ratios scale tasks volume

The Scale of Coffee Cups

A colleague is a religious McDonalds’ coffee drinker. One day she showed up with a medium coffee and a cream on the side. It was in two separate cups:

I asked her for her cups when she was done. (She is also a math teacher so understands that this is not a creepy request. It is no weirder than the time I bought 400 ping pong balls, or 1500 bendy straws). I then made her a request to buy a large and small coffee in the future and save me the cups.

tasks

Math Challenge Activity

I built this activity for a group of 120 students from grades 7-10 at a provincial math contest. The problems themselves are a mixture of created, adapted, and stolen. I chose them because they fit fairly nicely into a multiple choice format while still eliciting deep thinking.

The puzzle moves forward as follows:

There are 10 stations, and 10 problems. Each problem is responsible for giving a unique letter for the final word scramble. Some of the letters are repeated more than once in the final answer (i.e. have a frequency more than one), but no problem leads to the same letter.