1. Making Sense of Mathematics
Diane Leighty
October 11, 2013
Norfolk Public Schools

2. Goals: Using quality tasks in math instruction
Understand the importance of TEAM in group work
Explore quality tasks
Discuss case studies of classroom instruction
Learn how to find or create rich tasks

3. Challenges New way of teaching
New way of creating learning experiences
Limited knowledge of how to translate real world situations into mathematics lessons for high school students

4. Increased Rigor
Increasing rigor does not mean making the math harder; it does mean having students engage in doing mathematics and thinking harder about the mathematics.
(Vickie Inge)

5. Team Building Activity
20 minutes to solve the Zin Obelisk Problem
Do NOT show your cards to the other participants in your group.
Share information ORALLY within the group.

6. Team Building Discussion of why this is important…
What are some of the goals?
When and how often?
Role of the teacher?

7. Exploring Problems
A man entered an orchard that had 7 guards and picked some apples. When he left, he gave the first guard half his apples and 1 apple more. To the second guard he gave half his remaining apples and 1 more. He did the same to each of the remaining five guards and left the orchard with 1 apple. How many apples did he gather in all? Explain how you solved the problem.

8. Exploring Problems (Continued)
Find the sum of the numbers from 1 to 25 without using a calculator, just adding the numbers. Describe the strategy you used and why you think it worked.

9. Exploring Problems (Continued)
There were three stacks of bills, one of $5, one of $10, and one of $20. If the total was $1,000 and no two stacks could have the same number of bills, what is a possible solution for the number of bills in each stack? Explain how you could find many solutions to this problem.

10. Case Studies Lakewood High School Mathematics Teacher
Jerome Robinson’s 7th Grade Class
Discussion of the two classrooms…..

11. Counting Trains
Work with one or two partners to complete this activity.

12. Counting Trains
What standards are incorporated into the problem?

13. Dan Meyer Talk
If time allows we will listen to his talk from 2010 about high school mathematics instruction and open-ended problems.

14. NCTM Article
Mathematics Teacher, October 2013: Open-Ended Questions