Meredith Lampe

1/14/15
Puzzle Prompt #1

Imagine that you are working with a small group of middle schoolers. (You define the
group and what the participants are like by creating brief portraits of them.) For this brief
session, you are going to introduce the group to percentage problems. (50 is 50% of 100, that
kind of thing.) Could you come up with a strategy that uses some element of Freirean theory
to teach the concept or practice?

Group Portrait:

You are teaching at an inner-city middle school. You are in charge of a group of middle
students who are diverse in their levels of classroom confidence/willingness to participate.
Some are very hesitant to raise their hands in class and follow instruction, while others talk
consistently (frequently while the teacher is talking), and actively participate in classroom
activities. You arent allowed to ask about their family backgrounds per school policy, but you
have gotten the impression from teacher conferences that some of the students have very
authoritative parents, and are hesitant to become yet another commanding presence for fear
that it will cause these students to become unresponsive.
Fortunately, the students have already been introduced to fractions, so you can build
upon this prior knowledge to introduce percentages.

Challenge:

Get all of the students to participate in interactive activities demonstrating the concept of
percentages.

Method:

Ask all of the students to participate in simple physical group activities together (i.e. Ok,
everybody stand up together. Now everybody put two arms in the air.). Even though these
types of movements are abnormal in a classroom setting, because these actions are being done
in a group, it creates a comfortable atmosphere--If everyone is doing it, I wont stand out for
doing it. This way, students who feel uncomfortable about participating are more at ease. (2
minutes).
Review fractions. Review numerator and denominator. Ask lots of questions, and
frequently prompt for student input. Talk about multiplying the top and bottom of the fraction. (5
minutes).
Have students stand up once again. Dictate which side of the floor is the numerator
and which side of the floor is the denominator. Use the masking tape that you brought to class
to draw the division bar. Write a fraction on the board for them to model. (, , ). (3 minutes).
Ask students how we move from fractions over 5 to fractions over 100. (multiply by
20/20!). Do this with a few different fractions. Talk about percentages. (Numerator of fraction
over 100, just add a percent sign!). Now, write percentages on the board and ask the students
to represent them using the floor tape. Ask for questions a lot. (5 minutes).
Results:

My peers appreciated the way that I adapted to unexpected events (students talking
during class, etc). They commented on my reassuring tone, particularly highlighting a moment in
which I encouraged students, saying, its ok to be wrong!
When I taught today, I modified the interactive activity. I used a circle on the floor as the
numerator and the whole group of students (5 in total) as the denominator. To represent
fractions such as or , students stepped in and out of the circle. Aspects of this activity that
students enjoyed include discussing among themselves about how to reach the answer, and the
physical orientation of the students & teacher (for this activity, the students were standing and I
sat on the desk, allowing me to adopt a casual, approachable posture while the students were
free to move about).
Some things that my students mentioned that I could improve on next time include:
restating student answers, asking the student how he/she reached the answer and/or explaining
the students reasoning after an answer has been given. Personally, Id like to encourage wrong
answers earlier on in the session--I think that starting off with this can be extremely beneficial for
increasing participation, particularly in less confident students.