The Problem With a Problem Based Curriculum

Gerolamo CardanoImage via WikipediaHere is a great activity for a classroom.  It’s accessible to every student in the class, it can quickly and easily be modified to be more difficult, it leads to dozens of different questions for further exploration.

Now the question is what standards does this problem meet? Obviously, it can meet the need for subtraction in a second grade classroom and easily be modified for use with decimals and fractions for older grades. But what about some higher ordered thinking. (If you don’t think about this then the activity is simply practice in a frilly dress)

Moving to the next blog post we can see some very interesting questions on Algebra.

So now this interesting activity moves from being a lesson practicing the skill of subtraction to an open ended question on creating and proving Algebraic equations.

Then someone goes and suggests using n-gons instead of squares and finding the properties of such a system.

Suddenly, we can see that this simple activity is not only expandable for skill difficulty, but for conceptual difficulty as well. This is an activity I can use with 2nd graders all the way up to college students.

The real questions become:

* What are the actual concepts that I can teach with this activity?
* How do I direct or suggest my students move towards the concepts I want to teach without it seeming like I am directing them that way?
* How do I measure the learning?
* Who comes up with ideas like this and how do I find more?
Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making Myself a Better Teacher Episode 1

My first podcast with a friend Joy Kirr. The audio file  Podcast page Joy is a local teacher whom I was following on Twitter. I don't think I even realized she was local when I first started following her. One day she tweeted out an activity she was hosting at the school she worked at the time. I was like, hey that's right down the road I should go. And so I did, with my wife and kids in tow we went. I just really love making these connections.  We haven't talked much in the last few years but when I decided to start this podcast series and I was trying to think of teachers that I would like to chat with I remembered Joy and thought, "Yes, she is a teacher I would like to learn from." So here we are with my first episode.  As I reviewed to the chat I thought I would mark down some of the parts I thought were good. Around minute 3 we talk about low and high points in education and she really embodies a growth mindset. Keep those keepsakes,
Read more

Writing my lessons with OpenAI

Image
 Good unit plans require backward planning so let's create an assessment. Write a performance task for the mathematical standard Solve linear equations in one variable. Performance Task: Linear Equation Word Problems You have been hired by a furniture company to help them price their products. The company has determined that the price of a table is directly proportional to its length. They have found that a 6 foot long table costs $300. You are given the following information: The cost of a table is directly proportional to its length A 6 foot long table costs $300 Using this information, you need to answer the following questions: Write an equation that represents the relationship between the length of a table (in feet) and its cost (in dollars). A customer wants to purchase a 9 foot long table. How much will it cost? The company wants to sell a 4 foot long table for $200. Is this possible, and if so, what will the cost be? To complete this task, you will need to use your knowledg
Read more

Finally getting around to playing with CHATGPT

 My first question and answer. so the question is from a performance task I set for my students. I think if they followed the directions they could turn in a piece of work that I would grade as acceptable. Often I try to get my students to write or verbally explain their thought process and I would be looking for this exact answer. Well maybe I would expect them to tell me to draw a line up three boxes on a graph paper and over 4 boxes to make a right triangle. Draw a right triangle ABC.side lengths of 3 and 4. Draw a dilation of triangle ABC with a center of dilation at A and a scale factor of 2 label the new vertices B’ and C’ Write a similarity statement for triangles ABC and AB’C’ To draw a right triangle with side lengths 3 and 4, start by drawing a horizontal line and a vertical line. These two lines will represent two sides of the triangle. Next, draw a diagonal line connecting the two lines to form the hypotenuse of the triangle. Label the points where the horizontal and
Read more