Three Act Tasks
Originating from Dan Meyers for Secondary School Math classes, this whole class problem based approach is an excellent way to develop students' ability to question, engage in problem solving, develop a range of strategies, and mathematically model. Every child has an entry point into the activity and can work to their potential. Dan has created a great video series explaining this approach.
More recently, Graham Fletcher has created many 'Three Act Tasks' for Elementary aged students. I highly recommend checking out his site or Kendra Lomax who has created some tasks for early primary students.
For those teachers who have never heard of Three Acts, I recommend you pop over to Tedd.org to check out the resources they have created to support teachers with this approach. You will need to register but it is free.
A summary of the Three Acts can be found below. This was written by a team at NCSM with support from Graham Fletcher.
More recently, Graham Fletcher has created many 'Three Act Tasks' for Elementary aged students. I highly recommend checking out his site or Kendra Lomax who has created some tasks for early primary students.
For those teachers who have never heard of Three Acts, I recommend you pop over to Tedd.org to check out the resources they have created to support teachers with this approach. You will need to register but it is free.
A summary of the Three Acts can be found below. This was written by a team at NCSM with support from Graham Fletcher.
| three_act_taks_explained.pdf |
For more information on the benefits of this approach, you may wish to read this article written in Teaching Children's Mathematics.
| trying_three_act_tasks_in_primary_article.pdf |
Three Acts Examples:
Initially I began exploring this approach using Three Acts that had been created for K - 7 classes by Graham Fletcher, Kendra Lomax, and others. As my confidence developed, I created a few of my own and wrote lesson plans that aligned with our BC Curriculum (see below). If you have created some of your own 3 Act Tasks, I would love to hear about them and your reflections. There is no right or wrong time to use a three-act task. They can be used gather formative assessment at the beginning and middle of learning a new concept or near the end to see which strategies students are using and applying in new contexts.
Candyman
Created by Graham Fletcher - Counting, Addition to 10
As mentioned above, Graham Fletcher has created numerous Three Act Tasks for K - 7 classrooms. You can find the Candyman "Three Act Task" on his website.
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Chews
Subtraction from 11
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Birthday Candles
Subtraction with numbers to 10
Kudos to Kendra Lomax for the idea and inspiration for this Three Act. She created one called "Cupcakes" which you can find here. I tried to simplify the task a bit by having all the candles on one cake; whereas, in her task the candles are spread across three cupcakes.
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Bunny Marshmallows
Addition to 20
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Smartie Tulip
Addition or Subtraction to/from 100
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Spring Smarties
Subtraction within 100
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