Productive Struggle on Day 1

This year I am supporting staff and students in the math department as a coach/facilitator. Today I was helping in grade 10 applied math, and brought a non-curricular activity to challenge everyone on day 1. It is based on this activity(spoilers if you scroll to the end of the linked page).

The goal was to use a half piece of paper to recreate this shape. Students couldn’t touch the pink page, but could come up and examine it. Some brought rulers and took detailed notes.

In groups students worked to recreate the shape. It is not an easy task, so they needed to try a few different approaches. It was neat to see how different groups approached the same task.

While they worked, I documented some of their commentary. There was evidence of frustration, and exasperation, and also evidence of some students perseverance.

We talked about how we will experience struggle in math class, and in life, and how we can lean in to the struggle, and enjoy the challenge and work together to solve problems in groups, and helping each other.

The class didn’t solve the challenge yet, but some will likely keep working at home. We did have a successful vice principal who visited, and managed to solve the challenge!

We’ll keep working on leaning in to the productive struggle this term.