Nearpod Popcorn Picker (Student Responses Too)

IMG_9291

I’m not going to lie.  It was disappointing that my students so easily fell for Dan Meyer’s Popcorn Picker problem today.  A *very* small subset of students realized that, just because the sheets of paper had the exact same area, this did not translate to the cylinders having the same volume.  It took awhile for students to even connect that filling-with-popcorn related to filling-the-3-D-space-with-popcorn.

They definitely were duped by this image.  The photos seemed to confirm to them that their wrong thinking wasn’t wrong.  They fell for every trick today!

IMG_9293IMG_9292IMG_9294

Using Nearpod to gather and share student responses was a boatload of fun.  They were SO engaged and excited!  But in the end, even after seeing Dan’s Act 3 video, they were skeptical.  At this point the lesson turned into more of a direct instruction experience.

*I* talked them through using the circumference to find the radius of the base.

*I* proceeded to find the area of the base of the first cylinder using our newly found “r”.

*I* found the volume of the first cylinder using our newly found “B”.

Then, *they* referenced my math-teacher-y structured work and found the volume of the second cylinder.

The energy was there.  The engagement was there.  The curiosity was there.

The correct math was not there.

Perhaps doing more of these tasks will help.  So, I’m doing a different task tomorrow.  We’ll see how it goes.

Click the link below to see some pages from the Nearpod report from one of the classes today.  I’m so glad I was able to capture these responses.  No students can opt out of the 3-Act process when they’re held accountable in this way… not that they would want to opt out!  🙂

Popcorn_Picker_Report

This entry was posted in Pre-Algebra and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Nearpod Popcorn Picker (Student Responses Too)

  1. Pingback: “We All Fall Down” #MTBoS #MTBoSblogsplosion Week 4 | MathyCathy's Blog – Mrs. Cathy Yenca

  2. Natalie Scott says:

    Would you be willing to share the Popcorn Picker Nearpod, so I don’t have to recreate it?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.