Lesson: Ferris Wheel Exam-Style Question

Sometimes I just want to remind myself and others that not every lesson has to be “special” or involve a game or video. Lessons that are successful are those where students learn to think better and experience mathematics at work. Here is one of those; it’s not flashy, just solidly successful.

It is time to review our work on trigonometric functions in my grade 11 class (IB Mathematics SL year 1). I made this document with an exam-style question closely modelled on recent exams. The question is about a Ferris wheel rotating at a constant rate.

Screen Shot 2014-04-30 at 11.49.24 AM

The first page is the question, which I copied onto half sheets and gave out. These instructions were on the board.

Screen Shot 2014-04-30 at 12.38.57 PM

I told my students to try to work in exam-style conditions for the first step, promising that under the black box on the slide there were other steps we were going to go through with this question. Then when it seemed like everyone had time to attack all the parts of the question, I moved the black box on the slide to reveal the next set of instructions. Students worked in pairs to create their best answers.

Screen Shot 2014-04-30 at 12.40.12 PM

And finally, I gave out the mark scheme (the second page in the document) and we moved the answer papers around so every pair marked answers from someone else.

Screen Shot 2014-04-30 at 12.40.23 PM

We then returned each student’s paper and they got to glue their corrected answer and the mark scheme into their notes.

This lesson mirrors the discussion idea called Think-Pair-Share and provides good exam practice. Students appreciate getting to see the mark scheme and how it applies to a their own and another’s answers.

My lessons are like this a lot of the time. I would say I teach a whizz-bang-special-game-or-video lesson once a week, or less when I’m tired. But I always try to get students talking, working together, and going deep into mathematics.

How much of the time do you teach whizz-bang-special lessons?