We had to research to find the lengths of different dinosaurs and think carefully about how much room they would need in each enclosure.
Willa: I learnt about area and perimeter. It was really fun because I love drawing and problem solving. It had lots of art in it and I had an open mind about it.
Samuel: The week was great because we designed a dinosaur zoo. I liked doing the dinosaur zoo because we got to work in groups. We were learning about squared and area. We were also learning about perimeter. Our group worked on about a 4 out of 5. We were pretty focused.
Amber: It was interesting learning about area and perimeter and doing the Dino zoo!
Marcia: This week was interesting because we learnt about area and perimeter but when we did that we also got to design a dinosaur zoo.
Ocean: I like doing the Dino zoo. I like dinosaur. I learnt about perimeter.
The Dino Zoo Investigation is an example of a "low floor, high ceiling task." Stanford Professor, Jo Boaler says that "Mathematics classrooms should be places where students work on mathematics tasks with a low entry point but a very high ceiling – so that students are constantly challenged and working at the highest and most appropriate level for them." You can read more: How students should be taught mathematics: for parents
Boaler says, 'Mathematics classrooms should be places where students:
Develop an inquiry relationship with mathematics, approaching math
with curiosity, courage, confidence & intuition.
Talk to each other and the teachers about ideas – Why did I choose this
method?
Does it work with other cases? How is the method similar or
different to methods other people used?
Work on mathematics tasks that can be solved in different ways and/or
with different solutions.
Work on mathematics tasks with a low entry point but a very high
ceiling – so that students are constantly challenged and working at the
highest and most appropriate level for them.
Work on mathematics tasks that are complex, involve more than one
method or area of mathematics, and that often, but not always,
represent real world problems and applications.
Are given growth mindset messages at all times, through the ways they
are grouped together, the tasks they work on, the messages they hear,
and the assessment and grading.
Are assessed formatively – to inform learning – not summatively to give
a rank with their peers.
Students should regularly receive diagnostic feedback on their work,
instead of grades or scores.
Summative assessments are best used at
the end of courses.
Mathematics classrooms should be places where students believe:
Everyone can do well in math.
Mathematics problems can be solved with many different insights and
methods.
Mistakes are valuable, they encourage brain growth and learning.
Mathematics will help them in their lives, not because they will see the
same types of problems in the real world but because they are learning
to think quantitatively and abstractly and developing in inquiry
relationship with math.'
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