Selecting Tasks - Chapter 3 Rough Draft Math

We had a field trip to an area technical school today.

On the way, I read chapter 3 in the book, Rough Draft Math. 

It was all about selecting tasks that invite rough draft thinking.

• Tasks that ask students to explain their thinking
• Tasks that have more than one good answer
• Tasks that can be solved with more than one good strategy
• Tasks that ask students to predict and then test and revise problems

While on the tour, a student pointed out one of the whiteboards with all the math on it.

As we left the room, he said, "I think I recognize some of that math on there!"

I quickly ran back, took a photo, and forgot about it until we got back on the bus.

Sure enough!  There was math that my 8th graders would recognize!

I cropped the two pieces that I wanted to focus on,

And for the remaining two classes of the day,

We dove right in to seeing what we noticed or wondered about the problem.

We didn't have any context to go by,

But we could make connections to what we had learned,

And then make predictions to what we thought they might have been learning about.

We had just been learning about linear functions,

And the students immediately recognized that the students at WSU Tech had been solving for y.

My next question was, is y = x/5 a linear function?

Their choice of how to solve it was to create a table and pick the inputs.

They quickly found the pattern and we were able to graph it to confirm it was linear.

I then switched it around to y = 5/x. 

Just wondering outloud how that might change things.

This turned out to be a great intro to our lesson tomorrow, linear vs non-linear functions.

We then moved on to the next problem.  

I started this discussion the same way, "What do you notice?"

"Does this remind you of anything?"

"What do you think they are trying to solve?"

The discussion was great!

It started off slow.

"I see a square root sign."

"They changed the fractions to decimals."

"Why are they squaring the decimals?"

And then pretty soon, they connected it to the right triangle,

And the connection to Pythagorean's Theorem was made!

As a class, we then explored why it was written as it was.

This was most definitely not how we had been solving for missing side lengths!

What a great follow up discussion to a great tour!

What great examples of where the things we are learning will be used!

What a great review of grade level content!