Lesson Study Report: Baking with Linear Inequalities

Part One: Background Information and Research Goals Background about school and class James R. Geisler Middle School in Walled Lake, MI is a diverse middle school. The middle school has around 800 students. The school is currently a focus school The lesson study was prepared for an Algebra I classroom using the Holt curriculum Teachers for lesson study: Lauren Taube and Valerie Weage - student interns Observers for lesson study: Brittney Ermatinger and Lauren Martinelli - student interns Part Two: Mathematics Overview The Algebra teachers at Geisler Middle School had agreed that graphing was difficult for the students and the teachers hoped that the lesson study could help the students improve on their graphing skills. Standards High School Content Expectations: A-REI.12 Graph the solutions to a linear inequality in two variables as a half plane (excluding the boundary in the case of a strict inequality), and graph the solution set to a system of linear inequalities in two variables as the intersection of the corresponding halfplanes A-CED.3 Represent constraints by equations or inequalities, and by systems of equations and/or inequalities, and interpret solutions as viable or nonviable options in a modeling context Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to create a linear inequality given a description of a constraint in words Students will be able to graph the solution sets to linear inequalities Students will be able to graph the solution to a system of linear inequalities Students will be able to describe the boundary line of a linear inequality and decide whether it should be solid or dashed Students will be able to interpret the solutions to linear inequalities and systems of linear inequalities in the context of a real-world scenario Lesson Goal: To write and graph inequalities and systems of linear inequalities, as well as understand the solutions to both in a real-world context. Part Three: Instructional Plan The complete lesson plan can be found with the lesson task. The lesson starts off with the Launch, where the task is introduced and the situation is explained. The lesson then continues with the Explore where the students are given time to work on the task. The lesson is then completed with the Summary. In the Summary, student work is analyzed by the class and the teacher prompts the students to think more deeply about the task. This is also where the final conclusions are made regarding the task.

Part Four: Observation Guide The lesson study team created a list of questions for the observers to focus on during the lesson. These questions were created based on the goals and objectives of the lesson. Questions: Do the students understand the task directions and their responsibilities? Can the students relate to the situation given regarding baking cookies? Can students investigate ordered pairs that satisfy the inequalities and ordered pairs that do not satisfy the inequalities to determine where the boundary line should lie? Can students properly determine which ordered pairs and which region on a graph would be included in a system of linear inequalities? Part Five: Post Lesson Analysis The lesson study team collaborated at lunch after the first teaching to discuss revisions that could be made in the lesson taught later in the day. Below are the highlights from the post-lesson discussion. Key Points Made in Post Lesson Discussion: The students need more time work on the task. The team discussed ways to give students more time, including eliminating some of the introductory routines such as checking homework and taking homework scores. The team also decided that in the revised lesson, the teacher would provide students with some ordered pairs to try as solutions. Then, the students would create the rest of them. This would eliminate the students taking time to think of all of the ordered pairs on their own. The team also discussed how we could make sure that students had an understanding of why we must shade an area when graphing linear inequalities and systems of linear inequalities. In the revised lesson, the teacher helped students understand by saying, How can we show all possible solutions without plotting every point? The biggest misconception during the lesson was in part two when students were asked to graph the second situation. Many students graphed in the exact same way as part one by making the x and y intercepts the maximum amount of flour, 160. However, the constraint is different and the x intercept should be 80. The team determined that the students were attempting the task just like the other one making it a procedure. Therefore, in the revised lesson to directly discuss the face that part two was a different case and could not be completed in the same way. Then, in the revised plan, we discussed as a group why (160, 0) would not be a solution. The group also believed that the lesson study goal was achieved by the majority of students. The team found it particularly encouraging when students continued to make connections in the following lessons to the task from the lesson study. The teachers that taught the lesson study felt that their students had a better understanding of what qualifies a solution to a linear inequality.