Day 151 - Day 155 MCAS and Cereal Boxes

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.2 Find the volume of a right rectangular prism with fractional edge lengths by packing it with unit cubes of the appropriate unit fraction edge lengths, and show that the volume is the same as would be found by multiplying the edge lengths of the prism. Apply the formulas V = lwh and V = bh to find volumes of right rectangular prisms with fractional edge lengths in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

6.G.4 Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface areas of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

6.NS.3 Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.

Quote of the Day: "Especially for fostering creative, conceptual work, the best way to use money as a motivator is to take the issue of money off the table so people concentrate on the work." - Daniel Pink

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "If I get an answer that is not 540 for the surface area is it wrong?" - In reference to finding the surface area of a box with a volume of 540 inches cubed.

The Learning Objective: On days 151 and 152 we took MCAS, so all standards were in play. In Days 153, 154, and 155 we were working on a project in which the students were asked to create their own cereal. For this project, students had to find the dimensions given a volume, find the surface area based on that volume, and then give the cost to charge for creating a box if each square inch was $0.25.

Assessment: The MCAS results will be given to us in September of next year. When I asked my students what they wish they had more practice with after they had taken it, here is what they said and my response in italics (although some of them I did not say out loud, because well...):

Game night a few weeks before MCAS Would you actually show up? Class says yes. Ok cool idea.

Flashcards I recommended this exact idea to everyone. Three of you took me up on it! Three. 

Weekly quizzes can be MCAS questions More often than not, they are.

Go on CTC & Print out blank weekly quizzes I like your attitude

More challenge problems Agreed, but we need fundamentals too. Without the fundamentals it's really hard to challenge people. And oh by the way, we have a Math Academy in the morning on Fridays. 

Reviewing the day before We did. Where were you?

What concept don’t you get (give out a list of all the standards and check off what’s not there). This is a good call. It's essentially standard based. That said, it's very difficult because you have a class working all over the map. It would be my utopia, and I'd love to learn from someone who does this instead of the "factory model." 

Video review of the concepts for the pep rally Yeah. That's exactly what the pep rally was for. 

Review more of everything we’ve learned this year. Forgot greatest common factor and least common multiple We played pepper twice to three times per week. I definitely hit that standard the day before in every class too. 

Mean Absolute Deviation We could have done this better. I wish we had spent one more day on it at the end. 

Pie charts That's another good call. We had a weekly quiz on this, but to some extent this could have been covered in greater depth. 

Radius/Diameter Relationship Really? I thought we had this pretty covered.

Multiplication/division facts That's on you kid. 

Constant Rate That's on me kid. Next year we'll add it in to the linear function conversation.

Number line with negative numbers and the opposite. Why are the two numbers related? Absolute value! Next year we'll add it in to the absolute value conversation. 

PARCC questions True. A little more rigor there. 

Strategies, songs, etc. I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall sometimes...I think we did about 20 visual patterns this year and every time we talked about making a chart. I think we did about 45 Estimation 180 problems and every time we talked about too high and too low. We wrote what we know on word problems and underlined what we were trying to find. We used similar problems. We journaled about our strategies the day before the test. 

Inequalities Could have been reviewed better toward the end of the year, but all in all the unit was pretty extensive. 

Fractions into decimals, decimals into fractions, also percentages Literally every grade I give out has a fraction on it. Did you go through the year not knowing any of your grades? 

Agenda:

1. QSSQ
2. Persuasive Language Discussion for writing on why their cereal box is best
3. Chomp Cereal Company work
4. WQ #26 
5. Rectangle ABCD courtesy of Fawn Ngyuen 

Glass Half-Full: For many of the things which students cited that we needed more help on with MCAS, there seemed to be a student who would counter what that student was saying by arguing we had it covered. Not all the work that was put into the year was lost on everyone.

Regrets: The other teacher did a 3-2-1 summary. Three things that were positive, two things to work on, and one question. That would have put a more positive spin on the MCAS debriefing.

Link of the Day: A colleague shared this opinion piece on someone who reflected on seeing classrooms in Finland. A few things that I already knew include the teacher following students up through the early grades and the overall philosophy that less is more (shorter school days and starting school later in life). Her opinion that there are still good and bad teachers was something new and different for me as I was under the impression that bad teachers are generally weeded out.