Reply To: Rebuilding Understanding

[Sean Breen]

Thanks Kyle. I have not tried the hot chocolate unit. I did use the Nana’s chocolatiness and got some totally unanticipated answers. There were a number of kids who got the gist of what was going on, and eventually, came up with 3 pretty elegant ways of solving it. Many of the other students avoided the math in favor of changing the narrative (I’d just throw it out and make a new one.) In the sequel about making eggs, even the ones who had demonstrated some mastery started to fall back on questionable strategies (I would just put 1/4 egg in, or I’d pick the extra flour out.)

I also tried the Sugar Sugar Desmos activity. Maybe it was more about their ability to read graphs than about ratios and unit rates, but hardly anyone was successful. I’ll try your hot-chocolate next, but I really have to be ready for anything at this point.

And percentages are next…