Day 53: Zombie Bridge

6th Grade Math Standards: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need. Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

The Learning Objective: Persevere in problem solving

Quote of the Day: “When the USA Basketball team failed to win the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, many asked, “How could this happen? How could the USA team - every player an NBA All-Star - lose to Argentina, Lithuania, and Puerto Rico? We sent great players. They sent great teams.” - John Wooden

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "How many numbers are between 11/5 and 12/5?"

Assessment: Circumventing the room during Zombie Bridge; self-assessment papers from the fractions test

Agenda:

1. Self Assessment
2. Review the test
3. Yummy Math & Mashed Potatoes 
4. Zombie Bridge

Glass-Half Full: Nobody out of 116 students solved Zombie Bridge. Yet all were engaged and involved in the process. The students were able to successfully get across the bridge in 19 minutes, but could not get under 18 minutes.

Regrets: The other team did the fractions test today and probably experienced better results. That being said, doing the test today meant not doing the Zombie Bridge problem. I want to have students not only get good grades, but enjoy math class. That's what Zombie Bridge helps us do, so it's hard to call this a regret, but I do wish that we did not have to give a test on a Monday. Then again, people are expected to perform in the real world on the first day of the week.

Link of the Day: The best 3 countries for working women: Finland, Sweeden, and Norway.