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New Tie Breaker Feature in Team Mode Promotes Positive Interdependence

Tie Breaker screenshot

New Tie Breaker Feature in Team Mode Promotes Positive Interdependence

Since Woot Math launched Team Mode in the fall, students, more than ever, have been loving collaborating with their peers to solve problems. If you haven’t tried out Team Mode in your classroom, check out the New Team Mode for Collaborative Learning blog post to learn more.

This week we launched a new feature to provide teachers the opportunity to encourage students to work and collaborate to make sure everyone on the team knows how to solve the problem. Teachers can now award half points to teams who do a great job showing their work. This incentive encourages students to engage in the activity and show their best work. Also, it helps break ties at the end of team mode. Let’s jump right into how it works.

How it works

Part of what makes Woot Math great is the ability for students to show their thinking on the scratchpad. We’ve added a way for you to reward great work, and tied it into Team Mode’s scoring. You’ll find a new button on the Team Mode leaderboard, “Bonus for Great Work”:
Team Mode Leader Board

This view anonymously shows samples of each team’s work. It’s up to you to determine which team(s) should be awarded a ½ point bonus for showing great work. Or you can use this as an opportunity to award partial credit to a team that’s demonstrated a good effort, but didn’t quite get to the correct answer. If multiple teams show excellent work, feel free to award as many teams as you wish with the bonus. When finished, click “Done” to see the fun animated results on the leaderboard. Those teams receiving the bonus will see a gold star next to their avatar for that round.

Great Work Bonus Screen

Positive Interdependence

This feature arose out of requests for more ways to support teachers as they promote positive interdependence during group work. Groups work best when everyone is engaged, participating and working together.

Positive Interdependence has two components. Positive correlation of outcomes and student dependence on one another for success. When students do well, their team does well. When they just copy the answer and don’t engage with the problem, they bring the group down. The group outcomes are positively correlated to the individuals outcomes. Also, the group should have incentive to depend on one another. When you help your peers understand how to solve a problem, the team does better.

Team mode already promotes interdependence since everyone in the team needs to have the right answer to get the point. The bonus point feature takes this a step farther, not only does everyone need to have the right answer, they need to show how to solve the problem…no more relying on that one teammate who knows the right answer. Now students have more incentive to work together to make sure everyone on the team understands the mathematics. Instead of pinning students against one another, Woot Math is getting students to work together on teams to be instructional resources for one another.

This new feature also supports teachers as they work to create a culture in the classroom where students work together. A teacher doesn’t have to use the ‘great work button’ often, just enough so students know they are accountable and need to show work for their team to be successful.

Tie Breaker

On the last question of the poll, in the event of a tie for first place, a tie-breaker button will show up. You’ll be able to select a winner based on the quality of work shown on that final question.
Tie Breaker screenshot
When you click the “Start the Tie Breaker” button, it works just like the “Great Work Bonus” from previous questions. Except now it only shows the teams tied for first place, and you can break the tie with a Great Work Gold Star!
Tie Breaker Detail
Make your selection, click done, and the winner is revealed!
Team Mode Winner Screen
We hope that you enjoy this new feature and find your students excited and motivated to show great work as they work collaboratively to solve rich tasks in Woot Math Team Mode.

We hope you enjoy team mode and please don’t hesitate to reach out with success stories, questions, tips or questions.

Visit our page on Formative Assessment for more on how to use this free tool in your classroom.

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New Team Mode for Collaborative Learning

Moving Team Members Around

New Team Mode for Collaborative Learning

Students have access to more technology for learning than ever before. It’s in their backpacks, classrooms, computer labs… even their pockets!

Despite all the improvements in learning technology over the last decade, computers are not the most powerful asset in a math classroom. By having your students work with their peers, you can leverage the most powerful tool in the room… the human brain in each of your students. When they work together in team mode, students explain, listen, argue, justify and question. They also tend to have more fun. As far as technology has come, students still have more fun working on math with friends than with a computer. 

Here at Woot Math, we believe in the power of collaborative learning and the power of educational technology. That’s why we are excited to introduce Team Mode. This new feature groups students on teams, facilitating collaboration on engaging, rich math tasks. Students work together with their team but still have individual accountability to showing work and understanding the solution, not just copying answers. Team Mode is part of Woot Math’s free Formative Assessment platform and comes to you, free, with no strings attached. “How does it work?” “Get me started!” “Yes please!” We hear you. Read on to learn more.

Getting Started with Team Mode for Collaborative Learning

There are two ways to start team mode. Both involve finding some content either from your content or our library of free, public content. Click “teacher led” to launch the Woot. The simple way to start Team Mode is to click the team mode button before you launch.
Starting Team Mode

By selecting Team Mode, you are opting to run the entire Woot with students in teams. If you want to start with individual mode and switch to Team Mode part way through, Woot can do that too. You can switch to Team Mode at any time by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner and selecting Team Mode. This will make the rest of the activity run in Team Mode

Starting Team Mode Option 2

The next step is for you to put your students into teams.

Make Groups How You Want, or How They Want

First, you decide the group size, making teams from 2 to 8 students. In our testing, we found teams of 3-4 are the sweet spot but the choice is yours. You also pick how the groups are made. The groups can be made at random or picked by students. If you started Team Mode in the middle of a Woot, you can also have the software make the teams heterogeneously based on correctness of the last question. That way, you get mixed teams with some students who got the last one right and some who needed a little extra help. You can also make homogenous teams. We recommend this after a fun question asking about what hobbies they have or what kind of shows they like to watch. 

“What if I don’t like the teams it made?” Great question! 

The teacher has final say over the teams, just drag a team member to a new team or put them on another team. We know that sometimes there are classroom dynamics where it is best to have some students not work with certain others or some students to work with someone in particular… the choice is yours. Below, we see a teacher moving Jeff off of team Shark, to team Cricket and then replacing him with Jefferson.

Moving Team Members Around

How Does The Scoring Work?

Now that you have started team mode, students will work together to solve problems. The team earns a point if everyone gets the correct answer. If just one student is incorrect, the team does not earn a point. Note that everyone does not need the same answer, they just need a correct answer. Woot Math has tools that allow tasks to accept equivalent answers as correct.
This scoring method promotes collaborative learning since the success of the team depends on the success of each individual. Make sure you still hold students accountable to showing their work, this is another great way to make sure everyone is engaging with the problem, not just copying answers.

Individual Work Time Before They Collaborate

Team Mode problems start with individual work time before students collaborate. In our testing, we found that students have more to talk about and collaborate more evenly if they have some time to work on their own before collaborating. Each task starts with a two minute timer where students can’t submit until the timer is done, feel free to add or remove time as you see fit. We found that this solo time really pays off.

Practice Math Facts While You Wait for Others to Finish

Want your students to stay engaged while they wait for others to finish? We thought so.

Woot Math now has a math facts game for them to play while they wait for their peers to finish. Students solve math fact problems and work on improving their recall and fluency.

Engaging math game between problems

We have found that the game is just fun enough to keep (most of) them off youtube but not so fun that they rush through the real task to get to the game.

If you want a fun way to get your students used to team mode and the functionality of the scratchpad, check out Team Mode Orientation, a warm up that we made to help get your students used to Woot Math. To preview the activity, click the link, or login to wootmath.com and search for “Team Mode Orientation” in the Shared Gallery.

We hope you enjoy team mode and please don’t hesitate to reach out with success stories, questions, tips or questions.

Visit our page on Formative Assessment for more on how to use this free tool in your classroom.

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Woot Math Summer Academy

Did you know that on average, kids lose over 2 ½ months of their hard-earned math skills over the summer? If you have a kid in elementary, middle, or high school in need of some extra support with math, we can help. Woot Math Summer Academy was specifically designed to help your kid crush the summer slide, and start the next school year off right.

Woot Math Summer Academy has specialized programs for kids entering grades 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Designed in conjunction with leading math-education researchers, let us show you how we can help to bring joy and confidence back to mathematics. (We work with leading researchers, but we also have a lot of fun. We promise. After all, Woot is in our name!)

Your kid will work 1:1 with a classroom math teacher anytime, anywhere. All sessions are online, and leverage Woot Math’s web-based learning platform, which includes video and chat, an interactive whiteboard, custom materials, and proven adaptive practice, as well as one of the best math teachers available!

Woot Math has been working with leading classroom teachers and researchers for years. With grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education, we know where students most often struggle, and how to help them move forward quickly and effectively. For the first time ever, we’re now offering this proven, research-backed solution directly to your family. Woot Math Summer Academy will help build the confidence and support your kid needs to be ready for anything. Including Algebra. Woot!

Get started today, as spots are limited for the summer session. https://www.wootmath.com/summer-academy

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Multiple Select Task Type

Multiple Select Task Type

We have launched a new, often requested, Multiple Select question type. In this post we will explain what a Multiple Select question is, how it is scored, and how you can create one.

What is a Multiple Select Question?

A Multiple Select question allows you to set more than one correct answer, and requires that students select all of the correct answers in order to get the question entirely correct.

In the following example, there are two correct answers set (A and C). 

– Task Creation Interface for Multiple Select –

How Is a Multiple Select Question Scored?

For Multiple Select, each correct answer gets an equal fraction of the points available, and each incorrect answer deducts an equal fraction of the points available. The equal fraction of available points is determined by the total number of correct responses.

equal fraction points avail = 1⁄total number of correct responses

To provide an example, imagine that there are 6 questions, with 4 correct responses, and 2 incorrect responses. Therefore the equal fraction of the points available is  ¼  (25%) and each correct response is worth 25%, and each incorrect response is worth -25%. The maximum score a student can receive is a 100%, and the minimum score a student can receive is 0%. 

The rubric used to score a Multiple Select question is:

  • Students earn a percentage of points for each correct answer selected
  • When all correct answers are selected, students earn 100%
  • An equal yet negative percentage is earned for each incorrect answer
  • The minimum score is 0%

How Do I Create a Multiple Select Question?

You can create a Multiple Select question in two ways.

If you have an existing Multiple Choice question, and you select more than one answer, you can change the drop-down from “Students may choose any of the correct answers.” to “Students must select all of the correct answers.” Setting the option to must select all will result in a Multiple Select question type, and setting the option to may choose any will result in a Multiple Choice question.

– Creation Interface for Multiple Select Tasks –

The second option is to select the new Multiple Select task while you are creating a new question.

– Choose a Task Type –

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My assignments are not showing up for my students

My assignments are not showing up for my students

If your classroom assignments do not show up for your students, you can use these steps to resolve the issue:

Step 1

Make sure your students are logging into Woot Math via the student dashboard.  https://www.wootmath.com/student/login

Step 2

Your students should see all of their assignments after they login. Their dashboard should look something like this:

Sample Student Dashboard with Assignments

Step 3

If your student dashboard looks like the above image, but the new assignment isn’t appearing, check the Assignments tab on your teacher dashboard. The assignments tab will show all of your active assignments (you can also view ended assignments, archived assignments, manage your assignments, and more). It should look something like this:
Sample Teacher Assignment Dashboard

Step 4

If your new assignment is listed on this page, next make sure that the student(s) in question have been assignment the new assignment. Since it is possible to make an assignment only to individual students, sometimes not all students will have the same assignments. To check this, click on the down arrow next to the assignment name:

Sample Assignment Details

In this case, we see that 8 students have not been given that assignment yet.

Step 5

If you want to add those additional students, simply press the “Add Students” button and select the additional students that you want to send the assignment to:
Add additional students to a running assignment

Step 6

Now the next time that student logs into Woot Math, they should see the new assignment!

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Weekly Math Task: Daylight Savings Time Trivia

We created an activity to help your students learn about Daylight Savings Time. Students work on connected devices to answer Daylight Savings Time trivia and math questions. With all 7 questions this would be a great 25-30 minute activity. If that’s too long, you could cut the 5th and 7th problems and make it a 10 minute warm-up.

The activity starts with a simple question to remind them what Daylight Savings Time is. Students estimate how the spring time change will affect when the sun sets. This seemingly simple problem might be harder for some students than you think. You can always remind them that they are about to “spring forwards” because daylight savings time is about to begin.

Spring Forward

– Task 1: Spring Forward Fall Back –

The next task tells students that Daylight Savings Time lasts for 34 weeks. It asks them what percentage of the year this is. Some of your students may need a reminder that there are 52 weeks in the year. As a challenge, you could ask them how many days in the year and make them compute the number of weeks with the scratchpad calculator. It is always good to show your work; students make fewer errors and teachers can see their thought process. That’s why we encourage use of the scratchpad (plus, it is fun to share the student work with the class, and even ask for volunteers).

Task 3 presents some trivia relating to Daylight Savings Time. According to Wikipedia, it was first started as a way to save energy used on lighting. If the sun sets later in the day, people do not need to turn the lights on until later. The goal was to best align when people would be awake with when the sun would be up.

Daylight Savings Time History

– Task 3: Daylight Savings Time History –

Did you know that Arizona and Hawaii do not observe Daylight Savings Time? If you did then you could correctly answer the next task. Students are asked to tap one of the two states on the map that do not observe Daylight Savings Time. When you review this task, feel free to add in a fun anecdote about why Hawaii does not change their clocks. (Hint: they are closer to the equator, making their winter and summer sunset times more similar than in other states. Interesting!) So why not Arizona? You’ll have to read on because task 7 is about why Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time.

The next task asks students to compare sunset times between Colorado and Arizona during daylight savings time. You may need to remind students that Daylight Savings Time happens during the summer. In the Winter, Colorado and Arizona both have the same time.

Task 6 explores the interesting fact that the Navajo Nation recognizes Daylight Savings Time while Arizona does not. During Daylight Savings Time, (spring through fall) the Navajo Nation has the same time as Utah, New Mexico and Colorado but a different time from Arizona. For this task, students are asked to sketch a route on the map to show where they would have to change the clock 5 times without turning around. To get 2 clock changes, students draw a line that goes from Arizona to the Navajo Nation (or one of the other states) and back to Arizona. They then need to do this again, ending with one final trip to the Navajo Nation. In the winter, the entire map is on Western Standard Time so there would not be any clock changes necessary.

map of the Navajo Nation

– Task 6: The Navajo Nation –

The final task encourages students to think critically about energy savings, climate and Daylight Savings Time. A fun piece of Daylight Savings Time trivia is that Arizona does not change their clocks in an effort to save energy. “Whoa? In task 3 we said Daylight Savings Time helped save energy, now you’re saying the opposite!” In Arizona, having an earlier sunset means natural cooling happens faster. This reduces the need for air conditioning in the evening. Since Arizona is so hot, lots of their energy goes towards cooling homes and businesses. This is less true in other places where it is not so hot in the day and cool at night.
Home Energy Use By Sector

– Task 7: Home Energy Use by Sector –

This task gets students thinking critically about how the timing of the sunset relates to home energy use. Students share ideas with a partner and one of them writes their answer on the scratchpad. There are also hints on the scratchpad.

We recommend this activity as a review of Daylight Savings Time or as a fun warm-up just before or after we change the clocks. To preview the activity, click the link below. Or, login to wootmath.com and search for “Daylight Savings Time” in the Shared Gallery.

Preview Daylight Savings Time Trivia

Visit our page on Formative Assessment for more on how to use this free tool in your classroom.

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How to Use Woot Math to Prep Students for PARCC and CMAS

Of all topics in mathematics, students struggle the most with making sense of fractions and operating with them flexibly. Woot Math’s Adaptive Learning Content provides instructional (grades 3-7) and remediation support to help students conceptually understand and master key mathematics ideas. Students learn how to make connections among the various representations of rational numbers and use this thinking to solve problems involving fractions, decimals, rates, ratios, proportional thinking, as well as operations involving integers.

PRACTICE + VISIBILITY INTO STUDENT WORK

Woot Math provides full practice tests that are aligned to PARCC and CMAS. These interactive modules are designed to mimic the testing environments students will experience. If you want to use this resource as a practice exam, we recommend assigning it as self-paced so you can formatively assess your students’ knowledge.

Click below to demo a practice test as a student. From Woot Math’s gallery of content, search for PARCC and CMAS to view a complete list of modules available.

PARCC/CMAS 3rd Grade Practice Quiz 1
PARCC/CMAS Grade 4 Practice Quiz 1
PARCC/CMAS Grade 6 Practice 1
PARCC/CMAS Grade 7 Practice 1

Alternatively, you can use this content in a teacher-led mode to monitor the strategies used by all of your students and use this information to facilitate a classroom discussion. If you want to make changes or additions to the tasks, Woot Math makes it easy for teachers to edit the content directly.

These tools are available on Woot Math at no cost, and are designed to support authentic formative assessment and give visibility into student’s understanding.

For an overview on the positive impact that authentic formative assessment has on student learning, see this article by Dr. David C. Webb, an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Executive Director of the Freudenthal Institute USA.

ADAPTIVE PREP + FOUNDATION MATH SKILLS

For your elementary and middle school students who struggle with fractions, rational numbers and rate and proportion, Woot Math’s adaptive learning modules can help increase their confidence, improve conceptual understanding, and procedural fluency. 

Click on the Number Line Demo to experience a sample adaptive unit about number lines as a student.

Number Line Demo

To learn more about how Woot Math is being effectively used in the classroom, here are two helpful guest posts that were written by teachers:

Woot Math in a 6th Grade Class Blog Post
How to Use Woot Math to Help with Final Preparation Blog Post

RESEARCH & EFFICACY

Woot Math is a research-backed platform; our research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This funding has enabled us to develop a program that has demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness in many different schools from across the country, including schools in Colorado. Our research and development work has resulted in a product that is proven to help students develop confidence and fluency with rational numbers.

In addition to our own research, Woot Math leverages decades of research and synthesis about how students learn mathematics and how certain topics (like rational numbers) might best be taught. We work closely with the Rational Number Project (a multi-university, 30+ year effort that has thoroughly studied how students might best learn rational numbers), other leading researchers, and a bevy of classroom teachers. Our tools help to bring the best available practices to every classroom and do so with a unique focus on hands-on modeling.

Questions? Comments? We would value hearing from you.

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Differentiated Formative Assessments

Differentiated Formative Assessments

Do some of your students finish early while others struggle to start the problem? If you’re a teacher then the answer is probably, YES!

We have teamed up with some of our teacher partners to help support teachers with the age old task of differentiation. We co-designed formative assessments to support learners of any pace. Look for the tag #differentiated to find these assessments. They incorporate language supports, bonus problems and hints. Best of all, there are custom legends to identify if a student is emerging, demonstrating or exceeding in their fluency of a standard.

Sometimes students struggle to answer math problems because of the language demands, not the math content. We don’t want these students to miss out. We also want to make sure they can participate in doing the classroom math. This is where language supports and sentence starters come in. If a task asks students to explain their thinking, a sentence starter will help get them going on the mathematically juicy part of the sentence without having to worry about all of the writing demands.

tap an image prompt

– Tap an Image Prompt –

For the above task, students need to identify where on the line represents the greatest velocity and then explain their thinking. Some students will have trouble getting started with the writing so we included some sentence starters in the scratchpad.
sentence starters

– Sentence Starters –

Now, students can focus on the mathematics without getting bogged down in the writing. If you have learners who don’t need the sentence starters, encourage them start their sentences in other ways.

In addition to the challenge of writing, assessments can contain new vocabulary that trip students up. For example, a student may forget what velocity means. With the language support below, they get a gentle reminder that lets them focus on relating the graph to the motion of an object. This makes the assessment about the math instead of their vocabulary.

– Velocity Language Supports –

As the teacher, you can remove any of these supports that don’t fit your class. Simply go to scratchpad settings and tap the text box , then press the orange x. Remember to click “save” when you are done.

While some need extra support, other students will be ready to demonstrate mastery of the standard.  Thus, #differentiated polls have bonus problems in select tasks. Bonus problems in the scratchpad relate to similar content to the original task. For example, the tap an image task from above has the following bonus problem.

Example of a Bonus Prompt
– An Example Bonus Problem –

The bonus problem above goes beyond the comparative nature of the task. It asks students to find the slope of the line when it has the greatest velocity.

Bonus problems also work to assess if students understand the greater context of the problem. Reviewing answers and student responses can ignite productive discussion for everyone. For example, a different bonus problem asks students to write a story, including units, that corresponds to the graph.

– Write a Story Bonus Problem –

The discussion about the responses to this bonus problem will be informative to everyone.  On the next task, all students are asked to pick between potential stories for a similar graph.

distance from home problem
– Distance From Home Problem –

Hearing their peers share how stories connect to the previous graph makes the pathway for success more clear to all students. Search #differentiated in the explore content tab or follow one of the links below to get started with differentiated tasks. Or create your own! 

Visit our page on Formative Assessment for more on how to use these strategies in your classroom.

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How to Use Woot Math to Help with Final Preparation

How to Use Woot Math to Help with Final Preparation

Students are constantly struggling with study skills, especially in 9th grade as we start to think about end of year testing. It is difficult to “know where to start,” which is fair, considering there is a lot of material to cover! They are overwhelmed by the information and are still learning how to manage their time.

I was hoping to relieve some of this stress by creating personalized study plans for each student. I know, I know, a lot of you are rolling your eyes thinking, “How will I have time to do this?!” Using Woot Math and a quick worksheet, I was able to make study plans for all three sections of Algebra 1, on the spot, during a 45 minute class period. I know, it is very hard to believe.

In my Algebra 1 classroom, I start preparation by gauging students knowledge. What do my students need to know to be successful? Where are they struggling? What have they mastered? I answer all of these questions with a pre-test using Woot Math! If you want to check it out right away, click the link below. Continue reading to see how I use the poll.

algebra-review-quiz

My final is separated into four distinctive units: number patterns, graphing, writing equations, and systems of equations. I took five key questions from each unit and created a set of twenty questions. In class, I had all of the students work on the poll using the “self-pace” feature with automatic feedback turned on. You can see my student’s results below.

woot-math-alg1-review

Once students have completed their poll, they sit with me and we analyze their results using the results page shown above. I quickly count how many they got correct out of the five questions per unit and calculate their scores. Then, working together with me we create their own personalized study plan. I made this very quickly using a word processor.

alg-1-test-plan

I have used study plans in the past and students respond very well to them, and they continually request them. Parents are thankful that their students have a plan of attack to be successful during finals. Special education teachers are grateful for the guidance, not only for the students but for themselves! This allows students to clearly understand where their skills are lacking and where they shine. Also, meeting with students one-on-one to check in before finals is a great way to instill confidence in your students.

This structure knows no limits! Whether you are teaching math, history, science, you could use this as a tool for your classroom! You can add reflective questions to the study plans to encourage students to think about their goals and not just memorize formulas.

How do you prepare your students for finals? Do you let them run free and learn study skills on their own? Or do you have an awesome game that you play? Whatever it is, we at Woot Math would love to hear about it! Good luck studying! Woot! Woot!

About Diana:
Diana Rapp is a full-time math teacher at Fairview High School. She has been a mathematics teacher for two years. Growing up, Diana struggled in mathematics. She learned quickly at a young age that she would have to work hard and productively struggle constantly in order to be successful. Along her journey as a student she was lucky enough to have incredible teachers and tutors that gave her the tools to succeed and instill confidence in herself. Diana became a teacher because she believes she can be that mentor for her struggling students. Diana has a BA in Mathematics and is currently working on her Masters in Mathematics Education Curriculum and Instruction.

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Sequences and Modeling Formative Assessment

Sequences and Modeling Formative Assessment

Help students make connections between proportional thinking and sequences. This is a great way to set your students up for success with harder modeling tasks and Algebra. Students often first encounter this content through direct instruction and repeated practice. If this strategy didn't work for them, it's time for something new. In this week’s post we present a sequences and modeling formative assessment task designed to promote classroom conversation and discourse. Use it to get your students learning from each other and wrestling with problems that have multiple right answers.

Unit Conversions Warm Up

This review quiz/activity starts with a quick warm up. It is good to think about units and rates before diving into harder problems. The task asks, “A full gallon is 128 ounces, how many 8 ounce cups are there in a half gallon?”

Unit Conversions Formative Assessment

– Unit Conversions Formative Assessment –

This quick refresher on converting units helps prime students for the next two tasks. Unit conversions will help them model the number of ounces left and then the number of cups left per day.

– Milk Volume Conversion Task –

Evaluate the Reasoning of Others

Students experience how the modeling of the milk differs based on if the unit is ounces or cups. Then, the students are asked to evaluate the reasoning of two hypothetical students, Daria and Amir. Each are modeling the situation correctly but using different units. After doing the task, your student’s responses might look something like this,

– Evaluating Student Reasoning –

This task promotes productive conversations among your students. Ask your students students who answered A or B to elaborate on their good ideas of how to model the situation. It is important to assign competence to students who had some productive thinking. This will help them see they are on track, even if they didn’t recognize both of the correct answers. Hopefully, through a productive conversation, students will come to understand that both Amir and Daria are correct. They are just using different units to model the situation. We recommend you start this discussion with the “reveal answer” button deselected.

– Reveal Answer –

Sequences Formative Assessment

The final task is for the students to convert the recursive formulas into explicit ones.

– Recursive and Explicit Formulas –

Woot Math accepts equivalent answers and the correct answer can be either in the form f(n)=… or y= where n is the position in the sequence just like in the first two tasks. After students answer this question, review the answers to make comparisons. Ask them what they notice and what they wonder. How do the slopes of the two lines compare? If they represent the same situation, why does one have a slope of 8 and the other has a slope of 1? With your support, students can draw connections between the two models and the conversion factor between cups and ounces.
 
Get started by previewing the activity right now, or login to wootmath.com and search for Weekly Woot: Patterns and Sequences Rich Task in the Explore Content Gallery.
 
Preview the Poll
Visit our page on formative assessment for more on how to use these strategies in your classroom

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