Just to give context of what my students know, we are just finishing up the calculus section of the course and will be starting Vectors next week. The final Calculus test is at the end of this week and covers the derivative of all functions (polynomials, trigonometric functions, exponential functions, logarithmic functions), and problem solving.
I started the activity by displaying this image to the class and told them 2 of these were true and 1 was a lie.
I gave them 1 minute to individually determine which of the statements was the lie (they didn't have to write anything down, just think and come up with an answer they could justify). After the one minute, they worked in pairs with the person sitting beside them and came up with a group decision on which one was the lie. I then asked them to justify why the other two options were true.
As they did this, I walked around the room and listened to some of their thinking. I checked in with each group and asked some sort of follow question. We then came together as a big group and I asked, by a show of hands, who thought each was the lie. At this point, I would ask certain students why they thought it was a lie (it was interesting that some chose the left-most option as the lie as it was the one they least understood and thought it must just be wrong). It was then revealed that the middle option was the lie and that the other two were truths (we also spent a few minutes explaining what the first option meant).
Now the students got to be creative. Similar to my first attempt, I gave each student three pieces of paper and asked them to create 2 truths and 1 lie based on some calculus concept we covered in the course. I also asked that the statements could not be direct facts, they each had to require some thinking to decide if it was a truth or a lie (It could not be "the derivative of y=sinx is y'=cosx but could be finding the derivative of a y=sin(ln(x-3))). They were allowed to look through their notes for inspiration. All their contributions were then posted on the front board (they were asked to put their initials on the back so I could see what they came up with).
I now asked each student to go up to the board and select one of the notes (as long as it wasn't their own) and return to their desk. We then went around the room and each student read their note and stated whether it was a truth or a lie and how they figured it out. The truths were collected in one part of the room and the lies were in a separate location.
I ended the activity here. We had many more contributions to still sort through and my plan is to continue sorting through them as a class before the final exam in June. I'm not sure if I will have each of them pick another note and justify if its a truth or a lie or if I will collate the remaining options and have the class sort through them electronically (not sure how I would do this yet).
Why I am thrilled with the outcome:
- their answers all required some thinking to figure out
- each student willingly participated
- because they had access to their notes, each student had an entry point to the activity
- I was able to further see their understanding when they chose someone else's note and had to determine if it was a truth or a lie.
My next steps:
As we start to think about end of year exams and making productive use of review time, my current plan is to try this again with my class by assigning each student a certain unit and asking them to create 2 truths and 1 lie for that particular unit. I would then use this list as part of their overall review in some way.
A selection of student answers:
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