Taking problems apart

This week Dan Meyer suggested we visit one of his subscribers blogs, Exit 10A by Joe Schwartz. Using one of Meyer's ideas, Schwartz wrote a blog about taking apart a problem to put it back together. Him and a colleague took a question and removed a bunch of the information before they gave it to their fourth grade math students.


This is the information they were given. The students were then asked to imagine what the question could have possibly been.


These are the responses the students came up with. The students were then given more information about the problem.


And they continued to guess what the question could be...

          

And after being given a little bit more information, they were able to come up with really interesting questions. Schwartz hung the students question all around the room. The questions ranged from easy to hard. Students wanted to solve the problems, some wanting to solve their own and some wanting to solve a friends. Some students realized they did not include enough information to solve their question so they had to make adjustments. The students really enjoyed this activity and it stimulated critical thinking. It helped students to realize the components of a problem and what information you would need to give for a problem to be solved. This is a wonderful activity for the classroom.