Taco cart
Grade 9s did their first 3 act math task today. For 3 act tasks we watch a video, or see a picture, and then we notice and wonder things about the initial situation. We think about information that we’d want to know, or we make connections to other concepts we’ve learned or questions we’ve solved.
After watching the video and doing some initial thinking, we look at what more information would be needed to solve the problems we want to solve.
Act 2 of the problems start with more released information, in this case, 2 distances, and 2 speeds.
And students set about calculating the missing information, and determining who would get to the taco cart first.
We work standing up because it encourages collaboration. The vertical surface can be seen around the room, so we can all learn strategies from each other.
We consolidate the learning (today’s learning was about the pythagorean theorem, and how to communicate math solutions) in a discussion using student work as the starting point.
The 3rd act is a concluding video/image which shows the answer to the problem, so we all can know the answer.