Comments on: [3ACTS] Nissan Girl Scout Cookies

By: Manoli

Manoli — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 04:22:48 +0000

How many boxes will there be in the whole car of he cookies

By: jeb

jeb — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:19:49 +0000

how many girl scout cookies are in the nissan rogue ?

By: jessica l.

jessica l. — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:28:42 +0000

HOW MANY BOXES R THERE???

By: Andrew Busch

Andrew Busch — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:59:00 +0000

That video made me grin this Tuesday morning. Thanks for sharing. I’ll give it a go next month when we talk about volume in Geometry.

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:52:39 +0000

@Andrew K, I re-edited the lesson to include metric units. Good call.

By: David Petro

David Petro — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 01:23:37 +0000

How long did it take to shoot that video? Give answer you know is too small. Give an answer you know is too big.

By: Chester Draws

Chester Draws — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 23:56:31 +0000

Sure Danny. I like moving from the theoretical to the real. It’s the other way round that I have issues with, because it places the focus in the wrong place.

Want to fill a Rogue with boxes? Put them in and see. Measuring would be no help at all, and so knowing the volume of the cookie boxes becomes an irrelevant detail rather than the focus.

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 14:57:49 +0000

Love the simplicity of this task and the idea of it not being forced. Sure the context is nicely laid out, but the need to solve is natural.
If we’re going to force the math experience we might as well opt for treatment 1.

By: Danny Whittaker

Danny Whittaker — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 06:28:31 +0000

@Chester

Interesting point. What if after they finished with the Rogue, we had followup questions with a variety of different pictures of trunks and asked how many would fit or which would hold at least 500 boxes? Definitely include a pickup as one of the pictures!

By: Chester Draws

Chester Draws — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 05:05:08 +0000

My understanding of learning Maths* is that if we lead with Treatment 3 then we will have a classroom of students who will have learnt how many boxes will go in a Nissan Rogue, but who won’t learn from that how to estimate space in general.

(*Page 62 of my copy of How People Learn, for example.)

Contrast this with: “I want to ship 500 cookie boxes — will they fit in my car?” And doing it theoretically solves that problem much quicker than trying it out. And before we risk driving to pick them up and find they don’t.

I’d posit that my version is at least as real, if not more so. It also puts the focus on the Maths, not on the car.