To culminate our Chapter 2 concepts of integer operations and graphing equations, I modified our textbook problem to that of a three act math problem.
The best part of our problem was the "hook" found below. Students had great expressions of "uhg" and "awe" when I asked them if they wanted to see the winner of the "climb to the top" they needed to complete the work. So many times, students want the teacher to do more work than themselves.
I felt that they time and energy it took to create the videos (taken with iPad2) and produced using YouTube Doubler and Camtasia was well worth it. The student version of the lesson can be found HERE.
Students used a Google Form to give their predictions. Great accountability. I thought the winner was obvious when viewing the prediction video, but many students did not guess the correct winner.
Students then received a "slowed down" version of climbers which allowed students to count the number of stairs versus the time.
I included the prediction video in this video along with the slower version. Next year, I will NOT include the prediction video...it took students some time to realize that the slower version was half way through the video.
Students then received a Google Spreadsheet that allowed for them to gather data for each climber. See some classroom video below.
CHALLENGE: The biggest challenge is that all climbers did not have a CONSTANT rate. We eventually are going to create a rule that gives us an average of a climbers rate.. Not sure how to get around this, but felt this video of real people was better than the book.
CHALLENGE: This problem did not involve negative integers. Next year, I would like to have students go up and down the stairs.
Overall, I believe that the problem engaged and assessed the students. Obviously when we were done, we showed them the answers...
NOTE: the whole process took about 4-5 hours of prep. Was it worth it? Yes!
