Hi #NORCAN Friends,
Hope you are all doing well! Thought I'd share what I've been up to this week in my world of math...
Recently a friend/colleague reached out to me recently for some ideas around adding and subtracting fractions. In particular, he was interested in trying to make the topic a little more enjoyable by adding some context. This was a challenge I was really eager to work on because working with fractions is such a sore spot for so many students and their teachers. In the past, I tried to help make dividing fractions less abstract by using the idea of dividing chocolate bars. With this in mind, I figured using chocolate bars for adding and subtracting would be a good starting point to move towards multiplication and division later.
So here's what I came up with...
Act 1 - Introduce The Problem
After watching the video, I have students take 30 seconds to discuss with their elbow partners what question(s) come to mind before sharing out with the group. I usually give them an open response question in Knowledgehook Gameshow to ensure all voices can be heard.
Act 2 - Reveal More Information
When the list of questions is exhausted, I then show them act 2...
Students quickly come to the conclusion that the question I am asking here is...
How many pieces of a whole KitKat bar are there?
Then, I give students an opportunity to work it out via a Knowledgehook Gameshow question and share their results.
Act 3 - The Solution
It is always nice to be able to show students the solution for a little celebration. This is where I see Gameshow could make an improvement. Have the option to add a "solution page" where you can insert media, rather than me having to open a video file or run a slide deck.
Then, we continue on, slowly raising the bar on the complexity of the problems, but keeping the context the same.
There are about 7 different tasks that I put together... if you're interested in seeing them, check out the post on my blog here.
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