Several months ago, I wrote this blog post about revamping math problems to make them more "low floor, high ceiling." I also offered up this graphic organizer for analyzing and making over problems detailing these possible change strategies:- Devise a concrete and visual introduction.
- Remove or change restrictions.
- Remove or change known quantities.
- Swap the known and unknown.
- Inject some choice.
One or more of these strategies can be used to tweak the problem and increase the accessibility and reach of the problem. One strategy that I recommended was to re-write the problem in the form of a MadLib. I got this idea from a former colleague who created a MadLib project to teach qualitative graphing to her seventh graders. I thought the idea was pretty genius, so I have retooled it frequently.
Recently, I found this site where you can create your own MadLibs (or "MathLibs"). It's easy to use. Here's how it works...
