Match Stick Problem

Today for our number talk we did the match stick problem above where students are give match sticks arranged to show "6 + 4 = 4" and make the equation true by moving just one stick.  We used cotton swabs in place of the match sticks and tried to find how many ways we could solve it.

Students were highly engaged and very creative in their answers.  They surprised me by coming up with answers using variables and inequalities.  See how many ways you can solve the problem.

Here are some of their results:

And the Periscope...

Post by @MrSorensen805

Student-led Parent Night

After attending my first EduCon at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, I was inspired.  Also inspiring has been reading Paul Solarz's Learn Like a Pirate.  Both of these experiences have motivated me to not only move to a more student-centered classroom (something we've been working towards all year in the Rio Lab Class), but to a more student-led classroom.  One where students make choices about their learning and everything they do in the classroom.

The first step towards this goal was to have a student-led parent night.  One of our aims this year for the Lab Class was to try to increase parent participation with middle school parents.  We have held a couple parent nights to show parents what we are doing in our class that is a little different than what they've seen in the past.  We've gone over class technologies, discussed growth mindsets, and even had parents participate in number talks.  This time we decided to leave it up to the students.

The students had lots of ideas (as they always do!).  Ultimately what they decided on was to have the parents go through what a typical day might look like in the Lab Class.  They planned everything.  The created the groups that were in charge of the various tasks and chose who would do what.  Everything from flyers & posters to food & beverage to all of the activities that the parents would do.  They decided the order of events and who would say what.

Going into the night of our parent night, I really expected many to fail (which would be a learning experience in its own).  As parents began to arrive, the students became a little nervous.  The food group got all of the pizza and snacks ready to serve.  The parents filled the room and then some (we had 22 of our 27 families represented).

Our number talks group kicked things off with a number talk using the Bridge Riddle from TED-Ed.   They set it up with a brief explanation of what number talks are and how we do them in our classroom.  They then showed the first part of the video which sets up the riddle.  Parents then had to collaborate with each other to try to come up with a solution.  They were highly engaged, but struggled both with the riddle itself and the collaboration.

We then went into a blended learning model where students led three group: 1. An independent group using the computers where they taught how to use Student Connect to check grades, ST Math, and blogging using Blogger. 2. A collaboration group where they did a hands-on experiment and did some research together and 3. A student-led discussion on "grit" including the spaghetti challenge where parents tried to build the tallest structure that they could in collaborative groups using just raw spaghetti and marshmallows.

Overall, the student-led parent night was a huge success.  The parents were highly engaged and seemed to have a really good time.  We had several parents thanking us for a fun evening and that they learned so much.  I was really proud of our students, and it showed me how much they are capable of when given the opportunity.   Sometimes we just need to get out of the way and let them lead...

Post by Jay Sorensen (@MrSorensen805)

Fool me twice, shame on me

I made the mistake of looking at a visual pattern number talk and thinking that I knew the ways that students would see it.  Yesterday we did a number talk with the following visual pattern:

    

I made the mistake of thinking that they would all simply see it as the pattern just adds an additional column of three red blocks.  Boy was I wrong.  The Lab Class students came up with all kinds of different and creative ways that they saw the pattern growing.  

One student saw it like a movie theater with the front (blue blocks) being the handicapped section and the rest as rows of seats that were growing.  Another student saw it as a growing family.  There was also the "Frozen" method that say it as ice crystals coming up from the ground like the movie Frozen.  We had another Tetris method (like in the WIM activity).  There was the building method where the blue section would be completed and turn red. Then another blue section would be built and completed and so on.  And one student actually saw it in a diagonal pattern (pictured below). 

Then on the next day, I gave them a problem from a new website that was shared with my called Which One Doesn't Belong.  The site give numbers, shapes, and graphs & equations in groups of fours.  Students are to choose which one doesn't belong and tell why.  I used the following problem:

This time I was sure that I knew what the class would come up with.  I chose this one because I wanted to do a quick number talk.  Ha!  Once again the students were incredibly creative with their thinking.  

I saw that there was only one even number and only one number that was a single digit.  I figured those were the two answers that all students would come up with.  I personally felt that 43 would was the "right" answer because it's the only one that not a square.  If figured a couple students would come up with that as well.  

The first answer that was shared was that was that 9 didn't belong because it was a single digit.  Ok.  But then students amazed me.  They said that 43 didn't belong because its tens didn't follow the pattern (0, 1, 2...).  Nice!  Then 43 was given but because it wasn't part of the family of 25-16=9 or 16+9=25.  Great!  There was also the answer that 9 didn't below because the sum of its digits isn't 7.  Excellent!

I will never underestimate what students can come up with in a number talk (or anywhere for that matter) again.

Number Talk, Talk, Talk

An activity we did this week in the Lab Class was representative of the shift that we're making in our classroom.  We did a number talk where students were asked to come up with all of the different ways that they could represent 3 within a given time period.  They first worked individually and then in groups.  In their groups they were to share what they came up with, and then decide on one that they thought no other group would have come up with.  They all came up with unique answers, but for the most part used fairly traditional equations.  We challenged them to try to come up with some more creative answers as a part of their homework.

They all came in with their new, more creative answers.  They were encouraged not to just use traditional whole numbers.  They shared them with their groups and came up with another answer that they thought no other group would have.  A couple of the groups shared their answers.  One answer used the whole number 81 inside parenthesis.  The class didn't want there to be any whole numbers.  One student threw out the suggestion of turning 81 into a fraction.  He had a great idea but then kind of got lost in his idea.  So we turned to the rest of the class to find how we can make 81 into a fraction.  This turned into a 20 minute conversation.

Almost immediately a student suggested 81 over 1.  We then looked for another way to get 81 with a fraction.    Shortly later a student came up with 162 over 2 and explained his reasoning.  This became known as the "Luke method".  Other students came up with other equivalent fractions using the "Luke method".  We then had students share their learning about equivalent fractions and their relationship to division.

All-in-all our number talk (designed to take about 15 minutes) took over an hour spanning over two days.  We got a lot of rich discussion about various parts of number sense and many students developed a deeper understanding of division and fractions (among other things).  This is what math looks like in the Lab Class.

Students reflecting on their learning.