Misconception Assignment by Um, Sarah

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

The Justified List FACT will be used to probe individual students' understanding about classifying quadrilaterals. Students will be given multiple different quadrilaterals and will be asked to circle the shapes that are trapezoids and to explain their reasoning for why the ones they chose are considered trapezoids and why the ones they didn't choose aren't. This activity will help us find out misconceptions or over or under generalizations that students might have.

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

We will then come together as a class and have each group present their answers that they agreed upon and the definition they came up with. As each group presents, their will be a whole class discussion and allows students to comment and agree or disagree on the presented material to expose some underlying misconceptions. At the end of the discussion, every group will have an accurate definition of a trapezoid. And this format is also similar to think-pair-share and allows students to work with their peers to correct their thinking and helping each other.

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

Students can look back on what they learned and how their thinking changed throughout these activities to see if their thinking changed or was further reinforced. I will have them record what they used to think at the beginning of the lesson and what they now know which is a formative assessment that will bring closure to the whole lesson about misconceptions from classifying trapezoids. This activity can be further reused to classify other shapes like rhombi or parallelograms.

Classifying Quadrilaterals

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

Students may think of squares, parallelograms, rectangles and rhombi as being exclusive to each other. A square is a rectangle and a rhombus. Students may also think that parallelograms are not trapezoids. The K-12 Mathematics Glossary defines trapezoids as quadrilaterals with at least one pair of parallel sides. Therefore, all parallelograms are trapezoids.

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

References:

https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7576/urlt/Geo-Honors-B1G-M.pdf

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

I would then have the students come together in groups to discuss their reasoning and to come to an agreement on the classification of quadrilaterals in the previous activity. This is the time for students to talk and work together, and by doing so, it is a good opportunity to clear up some misconceptions that students can work through just on their own as a group before coming together as a whole class. Then each group will come up with the definition for a trapezoid in their own words that satisfies their thinking and reasoning to further solidify their understanding.

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

In their groups, students will now be given a new task to create as many examples and non-examples of trapezoids and to be as creative as possible while still mathematically accurate with their shapes.

sarahum — 2024-10-21 21:43:31 UTC

We will go back to a whole class discussion to critique each groups lists based on accuracy and this will create conceptual conflict between the groups' current understanding of classifying quadrilaterals and perhaps a more clear concrete understanding since this activity had them go an extra step further in creating and classifying their own shapes that they had to come up with. Through another whole class discussion, we can use the conceptual conflict that arises to bring everyone to a firm understanding as groups are allowed to justify and reason their created shapes.