Human Cube Final Assignment

EDPB 503
Lacey Banman
Darcy Brennan
Cohort 3

Student Profile
Our focus is on Gareth, a grade 8 student experiencing significant challenges. Gareth has
issues in his home life: poverty, a single-parent home, and a depressed caregiver. He frequently
misses class at the request of his caregiver, who prefers to have him at home with the belief
that if he was identified as in need, she might be targeted by the Ministry of Children & Families.
He is encouraged to attend through the use of incentives, usually a self-guided cooking exercise
for which his teachers provide the tools and materials. On a personal level, Gareth also
experiences health issues that can make school difficult. He has intense tactile sensitivity which
manifests as discomfort while wearing most textiles. His tactile sensitivity also creates
unpleasant associations with certain food textures, and as a result his very particular about the
kind of food he chooses to eat. Gareth attends a school that has a low income demographic, but
he is on the lower side. In his classroom, he is generally ignored by his peers, but has two very
good friends, also from low income homes. All three of these students struggle in school for
differing reasons. The teacher works really hard to make her classroom inclusive, but the
children still single Gareth and friends out. The teacher is also really invested in making sure
that learning is accessible for our subject. Gareth is an entirely capable student, and very
intelligent, just often gives up or loses interest if he has to violate his tactile sensitivity, or the
lessons aren’t engaging.

Lesson Content
Big Idea
Analyzing data by determining averages is one way to make sense of large data sets
and enables us to compare and interpret.

Curricular Competencies
Use reasoning and logic to explore, analyze, and apply mathematical ideas.
Estimate reasonably.
Connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests.

Content
Theoretical probability.
Numerical proportional reasoning (rates, ratio, proportions, and percent).
This lesson is designed to teach basic probability of independent events, and numerical
proportional reasoning through several exercises providing real events for which predictions and
observations can be made, and to which mathematical concepts can be applied to collected
data to help make predictions more accurate.

Activity 1 - Mystery Dice

Materials - Laptops and internet access (Alternatively, one cup and five dice for each player)
Participants - Entire class, groups of two, and if desired, groups of three.
Theorist - Vygotsky/Piaget
Pre-Assessment - Discussion on probability of rolling different outcomes.

Mystery Dice is a re-named version of the game Liar’s Dice. The game has two or more players
make claims as to the total or minimum number of times a particular dice roll appears among a
number of rolled dice held by the players. For example, each player may roll 5 dice, and looking
only at their own dice, the first player makes predictions about the minimum number of dice
showing the value 5.There is an intuitive element of probability. A player may easily see that an
outcome such as all 15 dice showing the value 5 is much less likely than fewer than two die
showing the value 5. A player should see immediately that lower numbers are safe claims than
higher numbers, and that the likelihood of being wrong increases as the number of dice claimed
increases.

The rules of the game are placed on a projector while the teacher gives a brief explanation and
demonstration of how the game is played. As the sensation of the dice and cup used in the
game might bother Gareth, a digital version is used at http://kevan.org/games/liarsdice.
Students access the game using Chromebooks, and keep their Chromebook’s screen hidden
from the player across from them.

Post-Assessment - Discussion on possible strategies to be successful with this game. Students

collaborate to make a chart of probabilities of outcomes for a 3 die game.

Activity 2 - Cooking with Probability

Materials - Ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.
Participants - Entire class, grouped according to cooking classroom equipment available.
Theorist - Werner.
Pre-Assessment - Discussion with student about averages and their connection to probability.

Gareth loves to cook and bake. So, in this activity he will be baking chocolate chip cookies and
counting how many chocolate chips are added to the mixture to learn about probability. While
the cookies bake, he will be determining the average number of chocolate chips in each cookie
based on how many cookies were made and how many chocolate chips are added to the batter.
Once the cookies have baked, Gareth will be selecting a sample population of 10 out of 100
cookies, and finding the number of chocolate chips in each cookie. He will compare this to the
average he determined previously. From there, he will calculate the probability that a cookie will
contain the mean number of chocolate chips. Gareth will also make a math-backed estimation
on how many chocolate chips have to be added to increase the probability to 100% that a
cookie will contain at least the previous average (for example 4) number of chocolate chips (the
average will change if we increase the number of chocolate chips or decrease the number of
cookies, so we will relate it back to the previous average).
Because of his tactile sensitivity, Gareth would be recording all measurements and calculations
on the class’ Chromebook.

Post-Assessment - Teacher will view recordings to determine if student understands.

Activity 3 - Rainy Days Probability

Materials - Forecast, journals.
Participants - Whole classroom.
Theorist - Skinner.
Pre-Assessment - Discussion about meteorology predictions.

Gareth will do best with tangible examples of mathematical concepts rather than abstract. For
this reason, this lesson is centred around observing and make predictions, following the
principles of mathematical probability, rather than working with the equations that describe
probability. On Mondays, the class will access the Canadian Weather section of the
Environment Canada website and record the “likelihood of precipitation”. For each day of the
week, the probability as percentage is written under the day on the board. At the beginning of
the class, the teacher asks the class whether it’s rained the previous day. At the end of the
week, the teacher compares the likelihood of rain each day to the actual outcome. Students will
make a journal about the probabilities and if they are accurate. This will be a year long project.
Students are encouraged to look into what causes rain and how the percentage probabilities are
calculated. As a class, this activity is extended by having students calculate the average
probability of rain for the week, and compare it to the average occurrence of rain for the week.

Post-Assessment - Teacher reads through journals periodically to gain an understanding of

students comprehension.

Activity 4 - Assignment with Girl

Materials - Laminated 2-sided parent horses, with trait probability printed on one side. Child
horse worksheets.
Participants - Groups of 2.
Theorist - Vygotsky
Pre-Assessment - Students will be asked whether they know how to add probability of two
events.
Gareth sits next to another student that he really enjoys interacting with. One benefit of this
relationship is that when the other student, named April, is working hard on an assignment,
Gareth will emulate her and put more effort than usual into the assignment. When April is
engaged, Gareth becomes engaged by proxy. In order to take advantage of this, we will create
an assignment based around the probability of a new foal bearing the markings and colouration
of its father or mother, as April is deeply interested in horses. Drawing upon this interest will
cause her to be fully engaged in the work and encourage Gareth to engage as well. This activity
engages Gareth in making an artistic creation with his partner, by having the students colour in
the foal on their worksheet, according to the outcome of their calculations. In order for students
to feel ownership of this exercise, each student will pick a parent horse according to the horse’s
appearance, and together they will contribute their horse’s DNA to creating the assignment
result.

Post-Assessment - Students can describe the likely characteristics of their foal. The teacher is
able to mark their work through the appearance of their foal, which reflects the accuracy of their
math.

Activity 5 - Whiteboard Jeopardy

Materials - Whiteboards, whiteboard markers, erasers, pre-made questions
Participants - Whole class
Theorist - Vygotsky/Piaget
Pre-Assessment - Students will have already completed worksheets and in-class examples so
teacher can understand comprehension levels. Also, this activity in itself is a good way to
assess comprehension.

Gareth doesn’t really like to be the center of attention, especially when he isn’t sure about if his
answer is correct or not. In this assignment students will be grouped, asked questions about
probability and then must collaborate in their group, decide on an answer, then write it on the
whiteboard, and display to win points. Students gather points to keep them engaged, but the
teacher uses this as a formative assessment to see where the students are and what subjects
might need more time and attention. This activity also accommodates his tactile sensitivity, so
he can write on the whiteboard, although another student would have to erase the old answers.
We could group Gareth with his friends on a day when they all have good behaviour, or with
others on a day when they aren’t behaving.

In this game, the students are paired or grouped for the purpose of tracking the progress of the
game on a worksheet, using the mathematical probability concepts that they are being taught
through the game. In order to progress the game, students must vote on whether or not to
accept an offer by the teacher. This allows the entire class to participate, noncompetitively, and
gives students agency. There is no way to fail in the game, but there are varying degrees of
success. Students are more or less successful depending on their collective choices.

Post-Assessment - The game is the assessment.

Activity 6 - Deal or No Deal
Materials - Deal or no deal signs, worksheet, envelopes with monetary values
Participants - Whole Class
Theorist - Vygotsky/Piaget
Pre-Assessment - Teacher will do a run through of how the game works and how to properly fill
out the worksheet

Students will participate in a game of Deal or No Deal. They will be given a “deal/no deal” sign,
a worksheet that has the case values ($0.01 to 1M) with a section for students to calculate the
probability of getting a better deal than the banker offers. Learning through games is a great
way to solidify knowledge and with the show of “deal” or “no deal” on their signs, students are
able to demonstrate if they have a good understanding of the topic. Gareth would fill out
worksheet on the class chromebook to accommodate his tactile sensitivity, as well as
demonstrate a thumbs-up or -down to indicate deal or no deal, so he isn’t required to touch the
signs.

Post-Assessment - Game is the assessment, teacher will view whether students reply deal or
no deal to each scenario.

Summary
Several of these activities involve play, asking two or more students to engage in a fun activity
that engages them in the learning process through the acquisition of the skills necessary to
succeed in the game. By learning the rules and working toward specific outcomes, students use
play to practice with the new skills they have acquired. Play that teaches and uses new
concepts and competencies is a key feature in the developmental theories of Jean Piaget.
(Crain, 2005)

The cooking activity allows students to apply new numeric competencies as they are acquired,
in a real environment in which those numeric competencies are the steps to success in that
environment. By asking students to think about making the cookies, while giving them the tools
they need to think about the cookies in the way the assignment asks them to, we can see how
linking the activities and concepts demonstrates the holistic approach to stages of development
and learning that was stressed by Heinz Werner. (Crain, 2005)

All of our activities are completed in pairs or groups, leveraging the benefits of working together,
and access to the zone of proximal development as described by Lev Vygotsky. (Crain, 2005)
When Gareth is working with another student, particularly one whose abilities exceed his own,
he is able to break down his limitations and his skills can reach a new level.
References

Crain, W. C. (2005). Theories of development: Concepts and applications. Upper Saddle River,
N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall.