Day 45: Ratios Study Guide

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.RP.1 Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, “The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak.” “For every vote candidate A received, candidate C received nearly three votes.”
6.RP.2. Understand the concept of a unit rate a/b associated with a ratio a:b with b ≠ 0, and use rate language in the context of a ratio relationship. For example, “This recipe has a ratio of 3 cups of flour to 4 cups of sugar, so there is ¾ cup of flour for each cup of sugar.” “We paid $75 for 15 hamburgers, which is a rate of $5 per hamburger.” 29
6.RP.3. Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations. a. Make tables of equivalent ratios relating quantities with whole-number measurements, find missing values in the tables, and plot the pairs of values on the coordinate plane. Use tables to compare ratios. b. Solve unit rate problems, including those involving unit pricing and constant speed. For example, if it took 7 hours to mow 4 lawns, then, at that rate, how many lawns could be mowed in 35 hours? At what rate were lawns being mowed? c. Find a percent of a quantity as a rate per 100 (e.g., 30% of a quantity means 30/100 times the quantity); solve problems involving finding the whole, given a part and the percent. d. Use ratio reasoning to convert measurement units; manipulate and transform units appropriately when multiplying or dividing quantities

Objective: Write a ratio three ways in a word problem context; find equivalent ratios by getting a unit rate; solve problems with ratio reasoning; apply a tape diagram to solve for an equivalent ratio; apply a double number line to solve ratio problems; find the least common multiple; compare two different prices

Agenda:

1. Which one doesn't belong (Number 11 from Mrs. Morgan)
2. QSSQ 
3. Collect WQs and Review HW 
4. Start the study guides 
5. Review the study guides

Assessment: Circumventing the room as students worked on the study guide. The study guide is definitely longer than a full class. In the future I can cut problems out of the study guide. Most notably numbers five, six and any two of numbers fourteen through sixteen. It is a busy test with almost the entire ratio standard incorporated (with the exception of percentages using proportions).

Glass Half-Full: A colleague who teaches ELA came to observe my classroom last block and he was very complimentary of the way in which I have the students use highlighters to find the information that is important in a word problem. As he put it, treating word problems as close reading activities helps reinforce literacy skills and problem solving skills.

We also tried something spontaneous that the ELA teacher liked. All of the students were encouraged to send me a picture of them studying. The test was coming after a weekend and the study guide was given on a Friday. Experience has taught me that testing on a Monday inevitably leads to worse results. There are a number of factors that are likely to cause this - most notably that memory is not as strong so this was something worth a shot.

Regrets: Aside from what was already mentioned with eliminating problems, I feel as though students would also benefit from an answer key readily available to them on this study guide due to the high number of problems that they were asked to do. I also firmly believe students do not take advantage of this accommodation regularly because they are unaware of it and have never been taught with answer keys before. The security of knowing that they did the right process and got the right answer does not have to be exclusive to me walking around. Unfortunately we do not have Chromebooks on a 1:1 ratio (no pun intended given the content we were focused on) and I do not like to have to photocopy this many answer keys. I could have students check their phones, but my room gets awful service. Excuses are lovely but I can certainly navigate around all of these excuses.

Link: Warren Buffet drove people in a trolley to get out to vote. It was great to see the unified spirit of the country to just vote in so many instances (without actually following that with vote for ____). Having said that, Buffet of course did openly endorse Hilary.