Unit Planning Assignment

EDCP 342A Unit planning: Rationale and overview for planning a 3 to 4 week unit of work in secondary school mathematics

Your name: Rachel Jeon
School, grade & course: Rockridge Secondary School, grade 10 & Mathemtics 10

Topic of unit: SI measurements, Surface Area and Volume

Preplanning questions:

(1) Why do we teach this unit to secondary school students? Research and talk about the following: Why is this topic included in the curriculum? Why is it important that students learn it? What learning do you hope they will take with them from this? What is intrinsically interesting, useful, beautiful about this topic? (150 words) SI measurement is an important topic because it is useful for changing units as different things have different kinds of measurements in life. Instead of simply using a unit converter, through this topic, students learn techniques to convert between Imperial and SI units by using proportions. This topic assists them in making connections between units and having a better understanding of ratios and proportions in mathematics. Eventually, students will be able to learn more than one way of approaching a problem. Volume & surface are is also an important topic to be included in the curriculum, because it is useful to know when students have to think visually about different 3-D objects to figure out their volume and surface area. For example, when making 3-D geometric shapes or filling a container with liquid, students should know the formula for the area and volume of various 3-D shapes and understand the different measurement units.

(2) What is the history of the mathematics you will be teaching, and how will you introduce this history as part of your unit? Research the history of your topic through resources like Berlinghof & Gouvea’s (2002) Math through the ages: A gentle history for teachers and others  and Joseph’s (2010) Crest of the peacock: Non-european roots of mathematics, or equivalent websites. (100 words) The geometry is about lengths, angles, areas, and volumes of objects. Ideas in geometry first appeared in the ancient Indus Valley and ancient Babylonia from around 3000 BC. As the ancient Egyptions found the area of a circle, they could figure out that the area of the cylinder had to do with the base and the height. Similarly, students can find the relationship between the volumes of water in cylinder and cone or volumes of water in pyramid and prism. Moreover, by measuring the diameter of circular objects, students can identify the relationship between the diameter and the circumference of a circle.

(3) The pedagogy of the unit: How to offer this unit of work in ways that encourage students’ active participation? How to offer multiple entry points to the topic? How to engage students with different kinds of backgrounds and learning preferences? How to engage students’ sense of logic and imagination? How to make connections with other school subjects and other areas of life? (150 words) Since students of different backgrounds are used to different measurements, they should present the measurements, which they are familiar with, to the class. In this case, students will understand the international measuring system of units by country, and this activity will attract some students’ attention and help them engaged with learning measurements. Moreover, in order to enhance student self-efficacy and their learning, students should be encouraged to discuss with partners and present their ideas to the class orally as well as in writing on the board, since they learn more from watching others solving the problem. Especially for ESL students it is a very important part of learning, because they can practice oral skills as much as their writing skills. SI measurements and surface area & volume are useful in science as well when students do the experiments and calculate the density and the volume of geometric objects.

(4) A mathematics project connected to this unit: Plan and describe a student mathematics project that will form part of this unit. Describe the topic, aims, process and timing, and what the students will be asked to produce. (100 words) The topic is the surface area & volume, and it aims to help students familiarize themselves with 3-D objects by creating solid 3-D geometric shapes. They have to create patterns for each 3-D objects and make the actual shapes. Then, students need to find their surface areas & volumes and show their reasoning in their reports with the picture of their objects.This project should last about two weeks, and they should make a project in a group of three people. Through this project, students are able to organize their thoughts about 3-D objects, which are found in real life.

(5) Assessment and evaluation: How will you build a fair and well-rounded assessment and evaluation plan for this unit? Include formative and summative, informal/ observational and more formal assessment modes. (100 words) For formative assessment, I will give students a quiz every three classes. The quiz should include some multiple choice problems and short answer questions, and this is to check for students’ understanding. For summative assessment, students make the unit project and the unit test at the end of the unit of measurement and surface area & volume. For informal/ observational assessment, each group of three walk from station to station, where they make different geomeric shapes with the given 3-D math nets and measure the side lengths to calculate the surface area. They have to write the answers in different units.

  

Elements of your unit plan:

a)  Give a numbered list of the topics of the 10-12 lessons in this unit in the order you would teach them.

Lesson	Topic
1	SI Measuremet: Introducing SI units
2	Imperial Measurement
3	Conversion between SI & Imperial Units
4	-Quiz on Measurement: Using Unit Analysis and proportional reasoning to verify the conversion. -Units of Surface Area
5	Surface Area of Sphere: Orange activity
6	Surface Area of a Pyramid, Prism, Cylinder, Cone: Create 3-D objects
7	-Quiz on Surface Area of 3-D objects - Units of Volume
8	Volume of a Cone, Pyramid, and Sphere: Comparing the volumes of liquid in different 3-D objects (models in plastic)
9	Surface Area and Volume of a Composite Figure
10	Quiz on both Surface Area and Volume of 3-D objects
11	Review Day
12	-Unit Test on Measurement, Surface Area & Volume, -Unit Project due: Reports about surface area & volume of 3-D objects created by students

 b) Write a detailed lesson plan for one of the lessons which will not be in a traditional lecture/ exercise/ homework format.  Be sure to include your pedagogical goals, topic of the lesson, preparation and materials, approximate timings, an account of what the students and teacher will be doing throughout the lesson, and ways that you will assess students’ background knowledge, student learning and the overall effectiveness of the lesson. Please use a template that you find helpful, and that includes all these elements.

  

Lesson Plan
Subject: Mathematics		Lesson #6
Grade: 10		Time: 80 minutes
Topic: Surface Area of a Pyramid, Prism, Cylinder, Cone: Create 3-D objects
Big ideas: Students will understand how to solve problems, using SI and imperial units, that involve the surface area of 3-D objects.
Objectives: 3.2 Determine the surface area of a right cone, right cylinder, right prism, right pyramid or      sphere, using an object or its labelled diagram. 3.4 Determine an unknown dimension of a right cone, right cylinder, right prism, right                   pyramid or sphere, given the object’s surface area and the remaining dimensions. 3.5 Solve a problem that involves surface area, given a diagram of a composite 3-D object.
Content: What students will know	Language Objectives		Curricular Competencies
- (Key vocabulary) Different shapes of 3-D objects. - The total area of the surface of a 3-D object.	- Students will be able to orally describe the properties of 3-D objects (number of each surface, different shapes of each surface, and the area of each surface).		- Students work in pairs in Think/Pair/Share to figure out the total area of the surface of a 3-D object. - Students calculate the unknown dimension of the object, with its surface area and the remaining dimensions given.
Materials/equipment needed: (powerpoint and nets in the “Materials” file in the email) powerpoint, calculators, rulers, nets (3-D models: cylinder, prism, pyramid, cone)
Introduction (10 mins): (10 mins) Introduce real-life examples of 3-D object using power point presentation and make students figure out which one has which shape.
Body (60 mins): (5 mins) Recap: Check for students’ understanding Draw the sphere on the board and let students solve for its surface area in different units. (20 mins) Students in groups move from station to station to figure out the total surface area of the 3-D figures. Using the given 3-D math nets, they have to build 3-D object. Through this process, they will be able to familiarize themselves with the properties of different 3-D objects. Each station has a different net for 3-D model (pyramid, prism, cylinder, cone). (20 mins) As students orally explain how they have got the solution, a teacher goes over the process of calculating the total surface area of each 3-D shape. (15 mins) Students individually write write the answer on their mini-boards. They are asked to calculate the surface area of any 3-D object that I show on the board. Also, they calculate the unknown dimension of the 3-D object with its surface area given.
Closing (10 mins): Students discuss about the real life situation where people have to calculate surface area of the objects.
Assessment Plan: (Infomative assessment at the end of the lesson)                          Students individually write the answer on their mini-boards.
Adaptations: For check-in on learners’ prior knowledge, students can take a short quiz on the surface area of the sphere at the beginning of the lesson. - key vocabulary: diameter, radius, length, width, height, apex, base, face, cone, cylinder, prism, pyramid, sphere Modifications: - Instead of introducing mini-board activity as informative assessment, make students discuss and write down the solution of the 3-D object given in the problem on the big paper. - Instead of letting students in groups move from station to station, give each group of students only one  3-D object to figure out the surface area of the object and present their solution to the class. Extensions: - For homework assignment, students are asked to bring any 3-D object with the calculated surface area of the object. - Students have to create their own 3-D objects and calculate its surface area.