Project Based Learning... Ideas, Resources, & Need Advice!!

MTBoS... I need your help!!!

This blog post is to explain the thoughts I have for next year and to find others out there that can share some advice, resources, or ideas on how I can achieve the plans I have for teaching my students. 

I want...

My goal next year is to work towards a project based learning style. I don't think I or my students are ready for only project based learning but I want to take lessons from that style and incorporate it into my classroom for deeper conceptual understanding. 

I love...

Dan Meyer's 3-Act Lessons that allow students to question and wonder in Act 1, determine what information is needed to solve the questions they came up with and solve them in Act 2, and finally the answers in Act 3. These are great because it peaks the students' interest in solving math problems. If you've never heard of these types of lessons check out this blog & video.

Andrew Stadel's Estimation 180 that shows a picture and asks the students to estimate how many or how much. This I love because I am horrible at estimating and I think students will truly benefit in life from this simple task if used as a long term routine in the classroom. 

I need...

I'm looking for some direction in which I can incorporate these ideas into my Math 1, Math 2, Math 3, and Advanced Functions & Modeling classes. Is there a certain 3-Act lesson that you use for a specific topic in one of these classes? Do you have different resources that you use to model concepts? Do you have an outline or order that you teach specific topics?


My Ideas... Resources from the Internet

Linear Inequalities - Woody's Raise
Linear Functions - Styrofoam Cups, Pixel Pattern, Walk the Line (My 1st 3act)
Standard Form of Linear Functions - Sweet Snacks
Systems of Linear Equations - Stacking Cups, Elevator or Stairs , Gym Choice
Quadratic Functions - Record Flip
Exponential Growth - Fry's Bank
Transformations of Geometric Shapes - Video Explanation, Pac Man
Right Triangle Trigonometry - Marine Ramp, Boat on the River
Law of Sines & Cosines - Laying Sod
Trigonometric Graphs - Ferris Wheel

Additional ideas loaded in a google doc to continuously build resources over the years.

Are there specific 3 act lessons that you use to teach a certain mathematical topic; if so what are they so I can add them to my list?


***FYI: To download videos straight from a website like YouTube go to KEEPVID***

Explain Everything & 3 Act Math Lessons

For many of us we get lost on technology and how to use it in our classrooms daily. Here is one way that I use mine so that maybe you can be inspired to research ways that you would like to use your resources.

The technology that I currently have in my classroom consist of:

1 Brightlink Board

1 iPad

1 Apple TV

1 Dell Laptop

This past year we were lucky to receive title 1 funding and this coming year as well so I may be blessed with more technology in the future. Here is a breakdown of how I use my technology currently. But I'm always looking for new ideas so if you have any please comment below!!

On a basic day I use it as my whiteboard from my iPad since we have AppleTVs to send the information wireless to the projector. I like having the option to record anything that I discuss up on the board. My plan this past year was to record multiple problems but I got busy and forgot most times. I'm hoping to record more often this coming year so that students can watch our lesson multiple times if they need extra time or practice. 

I hate textbooks (I always have -- too wordy & too much information for someone that wants to go straight to the point like me). So, I make my own student guided notes and I use explain everything to upload the pdf files into the program and annotate on top of them. I save these files and put them on the internet on my topic list page that students that review or copy if they were absent for the lesson. 

My newest venture with Explain Everything is incorporating the 3 Act Math Lessons that were created by Dan Meyer and others. I created multiple slides that I can scroll through when I'm ready to jump over to the next act. I also created slides (Notice & Wonder) that goes right after the video or picture in act 1 so we can communicate and document what we see and are curious about. Depending on the math that we will use I might have a slide that uses the internet to pull in desmos to calculate our mathematics then screen shot the final image into the video to save. After we have determine our solutions we will jump to the next slide which has act3 the answer. I found that in solving many of these 3 act problems my calculations were not exactly the same as the answer and so I put in a final slide (Actual & Calculated) to discuss if our answers are different why might they be different. I'm happy with the product because it seems to give a smooth transition between acts and the discussion in class. I'm always looking for ways to implement my teaching and resources so that students do not get distracted or get off task as quickly. I hope this set up will avoid some of those issues. 

Here is a video I created with a 3 Act Math Lesson created by Nora Oswald on Super Mario Bros.

Another idea I started while teaching summer school was to use the iPad to take pictures of student work and upload them into Explain Everything so we could annotate over them. I really like this because I focused on student mistakes and trying to teach them it was a process not a bad thing. I want to stress this so much next year because so often students are afraid to mess up. I want them to realize it's the analyzing their mistakes and fixing them that is so important. If they never mess up they can never analyze. True joy in the math classroom comes from struggling and perseverance.