10. Dan Meyer’s 3 Act Math Task
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjIqyKM9d
7ZYdEhtR3BJMmdBWnM2YWxWYVM1UWowTEE#gid=0
11. Why is it good?
• Relates to students’ own experiences;
• Is based on sense-making, not
regurgitation; and
• Expects students to find solutions to
problems, not just answers to exercises.
13. Examples of 3 Acts in the classroom
Fawn Nguyen’s take on Andrew Stadel’s
3Act
14. Act One:
Retrieved from: http://fawnnguyen.com/2012/04/25/mr-stadels-file-cabinet-3act-lesson.aspx
“What is the first question that comes to mind?”
22. Act Two
“What information do you need to
answer your question?”
-an actual sticky note or a ruler, or the patent application for
Post-it Notes™. (Yes, he wrote the little TM symbol.)
- height and length of the cabinet
- height and depth in sticky-notes
- fraction of the sticky notes that took up the space
- length of the sides of the sticky notes
26. My Example on Three Acts in the
classroom
My goal for my students:
• know how to communicate the scenarios
and situation into words (i.e. create word
problems);
• be able to “tell Algebra” or translate their
word problem into linear equations and
solve it; and
• grow to be patient problem solvers.
32. Outcome of Three Acts
Students:
• Make sense of problems and persevere in
solving them.
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
• Construct viable arguments and critique
the reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
33. Links and Sources
• Andrew Stadel’s Estimation 180: http://www.estimation180.com/
• Andrew Stadel’s Three Acts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkLk45wwjYBudG9LeXRad0lH
M0E0VFRyOEtRckVvM1E#gid=0
• Dan Meyer’s blog: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/
• Dan Meyer’s Three Acts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjIqyKM9d7ZYdEhtR3BJMmdB
WnM2YWxWYVM1UWowTEE#gid=0
• Fawn’s Nguyen’s blog: http://fawnnguyen.com/tags/263/3-act-lesson.aspx
• Poll everywhere: http://www.polleverywhere.com/
• Halter, Chris. "Building the Classroom Environment and a Community of
Learners." EDS 374. UCSD, San Diego. 27 July 2012. Lecture.
• Halter, Chris. EDS 203. UCSD, San Diego. 3 July 2012. Lecture.
• Leinwand, Steve. “Tilling the Soil for the CCSSM: Ten Essential Math Leader
Mindsets." Speech. 9 Jan. 2013. Steve Leinwand. Web. 9 Jan. 2013.
<http://steveleinwand.com/>.
Notes de l'éditeur
Text a Code either 318462 for yes or 318463 for no, to 37607.
An act is one of the main divisions of a play or opera. Here we use Three Acts in order to make a mathematical story. Starting with the first Act: a hook, an introduction that grabs the students attention. We introduce the central conflict of our story clearly, visually using as few words as possible. Act 2 is where the protagonist/student overcomes obstacles, looks for resources, and develops new tools. And lastly, Act 3 is where we resolve the conflict, find the answer, and sometimes lead to a sequel. Now I know that some of you here whose content area is Science and the examples that I have is from the math teacher’s point of views. I want to encourage you to take this opportunity to think about how you could use the Three Acts in Science classes.
The Three Acts goes something like this:Act 1 – The Hook.The visual is clear. The camera is in focus. There aren't any words.. This is the beginning of the movie Jaws. You wonder what is going to happen next. And it strikes you in the terror bones. In a mathematical story we have…
Act 1 – The HookThe visual is clear. The camera is locked to a tripod. No words are necessary. It strikes you right in the curiosity bone.I don’t know what’s running in your mind, but my mind whispers : Will he make it?
In Act 2, we have Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Companies. In Iron Man 2, before he resolves his largest conflict of defeating the electric double whip guy, Starkresolves smaller ones – like finding a new element for his heart. In the same way, in the mathematical story….
We ask our students “What resources they need before they can resolve their conflict? The height of the basketball hoop? The distance to the three-point line? The diameter of a basketball?We ask ourselves, “What tools do they have already? What tools can we help them develop?”
The third act pays off on the hard work of act two and the motivation of act one. We find out that Batman survived. And we even lead them to a sequel, Robin finds the Batman cave. So in the mathematical story, instead of checking the answers at the back of the book….
We meet their expectations with the end of the video.
The creator of this Three Act is Dan Meyer, a full time Math teacher. He has recorded of all of his Three Acts and given the public access to his work on google docs. On this document you will find lessons from finding how high is the world’s records highest air bag drop to finding out which is cheaper: a shower or a bath?He lists down the common core standards and the suggested questions.
Why is it good?Because it is Math that relates to students’ own experiences: nothing speaks out to this generation more than technology. What is so great is that we have the tools to create the problem with our smart phones anywhere anytime. Why it is good is because it is not math questions that presents itself with just enough clues to solve the problem. It is a real problem where you either had too little information where you had to find more information or too much information you had to take out the unnecessary information. It is math based on sense making and not regurgitation. Students discover new ideas by themselves and are provided that opportunity to reason through their solutions, conjectures, and thinking processes. It brings the heart of mathematics back into the classroom – it brings reasoning back. And finally because it expects students to find solutions to problems, and not just answers to exercises.
After Dan Meyer, more teachers were inspired by his work and there were more teachers making their own Three Acts. I provide all of the links at the end of the slides. As you can see we need more women 3 Acts creators.
Here is an example from Fawn Nguyen who used Andrew Stadel’s 3 Act in her classroom. So thankful that she took the time to record and share her work with the world on her blog.
She first starts with showing this video.*Show video*And then she asks her students “What is the first question that comes to mind?”The student responded:
Bobby said, "Since Mr. Stadel is finding the surface area, he should have just put sticky notes along the top row only, and then one layer downward, then multiply." I asked, "Did Mr. Stadel say he wanted to find the surface area?" Bobby, "No... Okay, so I want to know the surface area."
She then asked her students to find out what information they needed to answer their own question. They said: She told them that information was costly, and there was a limited budget. So if they asked her for two things, then they needed to rethink if they could do it with just one.
Many decided they had the screen from Act 1 to try and get what they needed. They grabbed rulers and started measuring.Bobby, in the right pic above, wanted to measure the height for himself and told the class that the height was about 20 sticky notes. And that got Slater to say this:
Slater said that he thinks there will be about 23 or 24 sticky notes for the length of the file cabinet. And his intuition was right, there was 24.I love that Fawn captured this because you can see two things: see that her students are engaged in the lessonhear their reasoning through this video. How many of our classes have rich, valuable conversations like these? Teachers should provide and encourage more opportunities for it.
And then the payoff.After the students have their answers with them, the check to see their answers. *play video*Now, since Fawn allow her students to find solutions to their own problem, I am not sure if Fawn pushed them to finding out the surface area of the cabinet towards the end of her classroom. But if she did, then I can imagine them watching the video and checking their solutions at the edge of their seats hoping that they got the right answer.
I also got the opportunity to execute one of Dan Meyers work twice in the classroom. And I wouldn’t have the opportunity if I didn’t get to work with the best Master Teacher – Aly Martinez. She gave me her trust and the freedom to create my very own lesson for word problems. And when I showed her my ideas, she did not shut me down, but encouraged me. Another reason why I dared to do it, is because she created a safe environment for me to be transparent with her. I know that I can learn from both my successes and my mistakes when I am around her. So my goal for my students for this lesson was: Grow to be patient problem solvers: I told my students that real life problem sometimes don’t get answered in 20, 30 minutes. Sometimes it takes a long time. But I wanted them to be patient and know that their process in order to get the solution, their formulation of the problem is more valuable than the solution itself.
So then I showed them this video.Then I asked them who will win the race? Julio Jones or Rich Eisen.
Instead of a Think Pair Share, I did “Write Group Share” with them and I asked them to write the guess and state their reason, the group up in the tables and try to come up with a consensus of who will win. – After all the tables came to a consensus, I ask them to shout out what their group agreed upon and wrote it on the board. I then asked them to do a Write Pair Share for the next question “What information do you need in order to know who will win?” They wrote it down, paired up and shared. Then I asked for volunteers to tell me what information they needed and I wrote that on the board as well. Right here they are already engaged and reasoning through their prior knowledge. I then told them that I will be giving them information about Rich Eisen and Julio Jones, and I want them to highlight the more necessary information they needed from these two handouts.
After they highlighted, I told them to share what they highlighted with a friend and compare and check. We discussed and narrowed it down that we only needed Rich Eisen’s 2011’s 40 yard dash speed and Julio Jones 40 yard dash speed.
Then I asked them to write down the scenario – what was happening with the information that they had and solved it.
And then I showed them this. *show video*Most of them knew the answers because when they did the math, the math told them. So they were happy that they found the right answers.Those who were Julio Jones fans started to get sour when they did the math, because they knew Julio lost. I gave them a homework similar to this with different information. I asked them if Julio Jones competed with me, who will win. And of course I made it in a way where I would win by seconds. The next day during passing period, of the student from far across from me, shouted “Ms Tan. You won!” At first, I was confused about what he was talking about and then I reminded me. “You won in the race with Julio Jones. You made the math in a way that you could win”. That made my day, because it was the first time a student reminded me about the homework, and not the other way round. And I knew that he was engaged in class and did his homework.
