Why We Should Eliminate The Percent Button
“How can I use the percent button on my calculator to answer this?”
How do you answer this question from a student in your classroom?
When students use the percent button on their calculator they’re giving this mystery-calculating box their opportunity to understand and in return they get another “math trick” to add to their already giant bag of math tricks to memorize.
If we could, we’d delete the percent button from all scientific calculators!
Instead of that pesky button, let’s model flexible strategies students can use to determine percent values like we do in our latest problem-based unit Bear Builder.
In Bear Builder students will calculate the height of bears given various percentages of a base-bear utilizing various strategies that build fluency in solving proportions.
In Day 2 of this 5 day unit student make use of a double number line and benchmark percentages like 50%, 25%, 10%, 1% and multiplicative relationships to determine heights of various bears. Some of the big ideas that may emerge through this task include:
- Percent is a ratio.
- Percent is a comparison measured out of 100;
- A rate can be helpful to determine percentage values.
By helping students visualize the proportionality of percentages and modelling flexible strategies like scaling in tandem, using benchmarks, and rates we can build real sense-making around percent.
You’ll see students drawing number lines to solve percent problems instead of asking how to use that percent button on their calculator.
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LESSONS TO MAKE MATH MOMENTS
Each lesson consists of:
Each Make Math Moments Problem Based Lesson consists of a Teacher Guide to lead you step-by-step through the planning process to ensure your lesson runs without a hitch!
Each Teacher Guide consists of:
- Intentionality of the lesson;
- A step-by-step walk through of each phase of the lesson;
- Visuals, animations, and videos unpacking big ideas, strategies, and models we intend to emerge during the lesson;
- Sample student approaches to assist in anticipating what your students might do;
- Resources and downloads including Keynote, Powerpoint, Media Files, and Teacher Guide printable PDF; and,
- Much more!
Each Make Math Moments Problem Based Lesson begins with a story, visual, video, or other method to Spark Curiosity through context.
Students will often Notice and Wonder before making an estimate to draw them in and invest in the problem.
After student voice has been heard and acknowledged, we will set students off on a Productive Struggle via a prompt related to the Spark context.
These prompts are given each lesson with the following conditions:
- No calculators are to be used; and,
- Students are to focus on how they can convince their math community that their solution is valid.
Students are left to engage in a productive struggle as the facilitator circulates to observe and engage in conversation as a means of assessing formatively.
The facilitator is instructed through the Teacher Guide on what specific strategies and models could be used to make connections and consolidate the learning from the lesson.
Often times, animations and walk through videos are provided in the Teacher Guide to assist with planning and delivering the consolidation.
A review image, video, or animation is provided as a conclusion to the task from the lesson.
While this might feel like a natural ending to the context students have been exploring, it is just the beginning as we look to leverage this context via extensions and additional lessons to dig deeper.
At the end of each lesson, consolidation prompts and/or extensions are crafted for students to purposefully practice and demonstrate their current understanding.
Facilitators are encouraged to collect these consolidation prompts as a means to engage in the assessment process and inform next moves for instruction.
In multi-day units of study, Math Talks are crafted to help build on the thinking from the previous day and build towards the next step in the developmental progression of the concept(s) we are exploring.
Each Math Talk is constructed as a string of related problems that build with intentionality to emerge specific big ideas, strategies, and mathematical models.
Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons and Day 1 Teacher Guides are openly available for you to leverage and use with your students without becoming a Make Math Moments Academy Member.
Use our OPEN ACCESS multi-day problem based units!
Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons and Day 1 Teacher Guides are openly available for you to leverage and use with your students without becoming a Make Math Moments Academy Member.
Partitive Division Resulting in a Fraction
Equivalence and Algebraic Substitution
Represent Categorical Data & Explore Mean
Downloadable resources including blackline masters, handouts, printable Tips Sheets, slide shows, and media files do require a Make Math Moments Academy Membership.
Use our OPEN ACCESS multi-day problem based units!