Monday, February 24, 2014

Three acts by Dan Meyer (taco cart)

       I discovered math blogs for the first time last year when I was getting my masters and doing research online. I couldn't believe I didn't know all these resources were available. One of the first bloggers I found was Dan Meyer. How did I not know about him? If you are new to reading blogs or you lived under a rock like I did, I want to introduce you to Dan Meyer (watch his video) and his 3 act lessons. Watching Dan teach this lesson is exactly what I needed to see. Now I can model and practice this teaching strategy myself. I need to slow down my questioning, increase the wait time to give students time to process the information, and then have them share.
     The kids love these lessons and they are amazing. The lessons are broken into 3 parts. The first part is a short video that sets up a problem for students to think about and predict what they think will happen. The second act is giving some of the information that they will need to solve the problem. You give them this after some discussion in class. Then the third act is the reveal or answer. But really, watch his video because it is so much more than that. I am going to use Dan Meyer's three acts taco cart lesson for my Pythagorean Theorem unit.

Click here Dan Meyer's taco cart acone

    I can't wait to use this lesson with my 8th graders over the course of a few days.  I would love to hear from teachers that have used this lesson with their classes. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.
     This is a link to Dan Meyer's 3 act spreadsheet. You are not going to be able to stop watching them! Enjoy!
                                                       Til next time,
                                                               Jan

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