Thanks again for your comment!
]]>My biggest concern with the marriage activity (and this could absolutely be because I teach 7th graders so this entire activity may not be appropriate for them) is that students are asked to write an equation (slide 5) without the help of a visual of a line aside from the one they sketched on the previous screen. Maybe turning slide 5 into a sketch or have the options to create lines would scaffold that slide a bit.
I’m not sure how you can make Lego Prices better, but I’m excited to see what you come up with! I do like slide 5, though…or something similar to that where students can explain the parts of the graph/equation in context to the problem.
“LEGO Prices suffers in other ways. For example, I think it does a fairly awful job with Principle #5: “Give students opportunities to be right and wrong in different, interesting ways.” It’s narrow-minded in that sense. There’s really just one way to move through the activity. I’m discouraged by that, and hope to discover creative solutions around that weakness in future activities.”
Concerning Principle #5:
I’m trying to wrap my head around why you think Lego Prices does an awful job. I understand that there’s only one way to move through the activity, but I feel like that’s true of most modeling activity builders. I could be absolutely wrong with that, but I remember having the same thought about Charged. It may just be the nature of this style of activity. That being said, I have seen some very interesting ways students have been wrong. In fact, the first time I did this activity, I was sure that this wouldn’t be linear! I thought it would increase at a fairly steady rate for a short time, then start to become curved. I figured the more Legos there were in a kit the less it would cost per Lego…apparently not!
As always, I’m excited to see what you come up with.
]]>The Running Game
LEGO Prices (from the post)
Avi and Benita’s Repair Shop
There’s also another Desmos linear modeling task we’re about to release a new version of. I’ll write about it on the blog soon.
As for non-Desmos activities, it doesn’t get much better than Barbie Bungee.
Fawn’s version – http://fawnnguyen.com/barbie-bungee/
Matt Vaudrey’s version – http://mrvaudrey.com/2012/05/21/the-barbie-bungee/
Hope that helps!
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