full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Do you guys see how this, right here, compared to that — which one creates that patient problem solving, that math reasoning? It's been obvious in my practice, to me. And I'll yield the floor here for a second to Einstein, who, I believe, has paid his dues. He talked about the formulation of a problem being so incredibly important, and yet in my practice, in the U.S. here, we just give problems to students; we don't involve them in the formulation of the problem.

So 90 percent of what I do with my five hours of prep time per week is to take fairly compelling elements of pbrmelos like this from my textbook and rubield them in a way that supports math rannseiog and patient prolbem solving. And here's how it works. I like this question. It's about a water tank. The qeioustn is: How long will it take you to fill it up? First things first, we eliminate all the substeps. Students have to dveleop those, they have to fumroatle those. And then notice that all the information written on there is stuff you'll need. None of it's a distractor, so we lose that. sdunetts need to decide, "All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the vlave matter? What martets here?" Such an underrepresented question in math curriculum. So now we have a wtear tank. How long will it take you to fill it up? And that's it.

Open Cloze


Do you guys see how this, right here, compared to that — which one creates that patient problem solving, that math reasoning? It's been obvious in my practice, to me. And I'll yield the floor here for a second to Einstein, who, I believe, has paid his dues. He talked about the formulation of a problem being so incredibly important, and yet in my practice, in the U.S. here, we just give problems to students; we don't involve them in the formulation of the problem.

So 90 percent of what I do with my five hours of prep time per week is to take fairly compelling elements of ________ like this from my textbook and _______ them in a way that supports math _________ and patient _______ solving. And here's how it works. I like this question. It's about a water tank. The ________ is: How long will it take you to fill it up? First things first, we eliminate all the substeps. Students have to _______ those, they have to _________ those. And then notice that all the information written on there is stuff you'll need. None of it's a distractor, so we lose that. ________ need to decide, "All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the _____ matter? What _______ here?" Such an underrepresented question in math curriculum. So now we have a _____ tank. How long will it take you to fill it up? And that's it.

Solution


  1. matters
  2. rebuild
  3. question
  4. problems
  5. develop
  6. reasoning
  7. valve
  8. students
  9. formulate
  10. water
  11. problem

Original Text


Do you guys see how this, right here, compared to that — which one creates that patient problem solving, that math reasoning? It's been obvious in my practice, to me. And I'll yield the floor here for a second to Einstein, who, I believe, has paid his dues. He talked about the formulation of a problem being so incredibly important, and yet in my practice, in the U.S. here, we just give problems to students; we don't involve them in the formulation of the problem.

So 90 percent of what I do with my five hours of prep time per week is to take fairly compelling elements of problems like this from my textbook and rebuild them in a way that supports math reasoning and patient problem solving. And here's how it works. I like this question. It's about a water tank. The question is: How long will it take you to fill it up? First things first, we eliminate all the substeps. Students have to develop those, they have to formulate those. And then notice that all the information written on there is stuff you'll need. None of it's a distractor, so we lose that. Students need to decide, "All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the valve matter? What matters here?" Such an underrepresented question in math curriculum. So now we have a water tank. How long will it take you to fill it up? And that's it.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
patient problem 6
math reasoning 4
problem solving 4
worth solving 3
amazing time 2
math teacher 2
problem worth 2
water tank 2
math curriculum 2
real world 2
level playing 2
answer key 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
patient problem solving 3
problem worth solving 2

Important Words


  1. color
  2. compared
  3. compelling
  4. creates
  5. curriculum
  6. decide
  7. develop
  8. distractor
  9. dues
  10. einstein
  11. elements
  12. eliminate
  13. fill
  14. floor
  15. formulate
  16. formulation
  17. give
  18. guys
  19. height
  20. hours
  21. important
  22. incredibly
  23. information
  24. involve
  25. long
  26. lose
  27. math
  28. matter
  29. matters
  30. notice
  31. obvious
  32. paid
  33. patient
  34. percent
  35. practice
  36. prep
  37. problem
  38. problems
  39. question
  40. reasoning
  41. rebuild
  42. side
  43. solving
  44. students
  45. stuff
  46. substeps
  47. supports
  48. talked
  49. tank
  50. textbook
  51. time
  52. underrepresented
  53. valve
  54. water
  55. week
  56. works
  57. written
  58. yield