First Week Task 1

Grade 4GT
First Week Performance Tasks: The World's Tallest Lego Tower

Materials needed

  • The World’s Tallest Lego Tower power point slides
  • Calculators
  • Chart paper- approximately 3 sheets per group
  • Markers

Task description

This task gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their level of proficiency with multiplication and division, as well as their ability to reason abstractly and quantitatively about the problem. Students will multiply, divide and look for relationships among numbers during a group investigation.

 

Task directions

  1. Number routine:  Picture It (10 minutes)
  2. Problem Solving – in Groups (35 minutes)
    • Use the power point slides for The World’s Tallest Lego Tower.
    • Allow students to work in groups of 3 ( 3 is optimal, 2 if necessary, never more than 4) to solve the problem.
    • As students are solving the problem, take observation notes on the checklist provided on what strategies are being used and the SMPs that the students are demonstrating.
  3. Once students finish solving the task, have groups share. (15 minutes)
    • Discuss student ideas and strategies as a whole group.
    • Remind students that there may be many ways to find a solution to these tasks.
    • Ask students to share strategies and solutions. Lead the discussion by asking other students if they agree or disagree with the other groups’ findings.  Ask the groups to explain/justify their answers verbally. 
  4. Closure (10 Minutes) :  SMPs 
    1. Show the  8 SMPs.  Tell students that these are behaviors that mathematicians demonstrate during math tasks.
    2. Tell students that they will not demonstrate all 8 in one lesson.
    3. Say, "Think about the task we worked on today.  Discuss with your group the SMPs you demonstrated/used when solving this problem.  Give specific examples."
    4. Allow groups to share their findings. The teacher should record their findings on chart paper.   Keep the chart posted for tomorrow's lesson.
    5. Add/share your observations of what SMPs you saw students demonstrating as well. 

Suggested questions 

Image

  • Ask students how they arrived at an answer.
  • Ask students to explain what they know so far (especially if they are stuck).
  • Is there another way to represent that answer?
  • Could you solve the problem a different way?
  • Is your answer reasonable? How do you know?

Task guidance

Teacher should: Teacher should avoid: Anticipated Strategies
  • ask students general questions about how they came up with a given answer
  • ask questions of different students in each group
  • after a student shares his or her thinking, ask other students in the group, “Do you agree with _____’s reasoning?” or “Did anyone think about this in a different way?” if the students are stuck on a certain part of the task or having trouble explaining their reasoning, say, “Why don’t you and your teammates discuss [this part of the task]. I’ll go talk with the other groups and come back in a few minutes and we can continue our discussion.”
  • ask students about correct and incorrect answers, not just ones that are incorrect or unreasonable answers
  • circulate among the groups and try to interact with as many different students as possible
  • if students are unable to explain or think through a given idea, encourage them to move on to another part of the task rather than trying to lead the students to a correct answer and/or strategy.
    • explain how to multiply, divide
    • show students how to multiply or divide
    • provide any instruction
    • tell a student if their answer is correct or not
    • react in a way that shows students if they are correct or not

     
  • Use of arrays, areas models, partial products, partial quotients

Task resources

 

Standard

4.OA.2 - Multiply or divide to solve word problems involving multiplicative comparison, (e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem, distinguishing multiplicative comparison from additive comparison).