Building Views

Whole Class Investigation Tasks are an invitation for two students to work like a mathematician. Tasks can also be modified to become whole class investigations which model how a mathematician works.

To run this as a whole class lesson you will need lots of cubes. Wooden cubes (2cm) work well. Cuisenaire Rods or Centicubes or larger linking cubes can also work. In addition you will need a 4 x 4 grid to match the size of your blocks. Start with the problems on the card. They're easy to draw up on a computer and, for example, display on your Electronic Whiteboard. Each group first builds from the front and side views and is then challenged to find the minimum in each case. That will generate plenty of discussion. Follow with a grid of numbers of your own. I built one of these sets of rooms last night and recorded it like this. What do you think it means? Groups then recreate your building and compare with the front and side views you also recorded. The challenge now is to find the maximum and minimum for your example. Again lots of discussion as groups try to convince each other. Extend from there as described above. For more ideas and discussion about this investigation, open a new browser tab (or page) and visit Maths300 Lesson 163, Building Views, which includes companion software.

Is it in Maths With Attitude? Maths With Attitude is a set of hands-on learning kits available from Years 3-10 which structure the use of tasks and whole class investigations into a week by week planner.

Building Views is not in any MWA kit. However it can be used to enrich the Space & Logic kit at Years 5/6 or 7/8. This enrichment could be simply by adding the task to the kit, but there is another way if your school also has Maths300 membership. Building Views is one of 10 tasks which could be included in a Mixed Media unit. Creating, carrying out and evaluating this unit would be an excellent in-house professional development activity. The unit would explore the topic of representing 3D objects in 2D and such a unit has been successful at Years 5/6 and 7/8. Variations have also been used successful in Year 11 non-academic courses. Maths300 membership is required to build the unit because Lesson 163, Building Views, provides the software component which is part of the model. Alternatively, or perhaps as well as, if your school has the Picture Puzzles resource, the 'software' component could be the Building Views Picture Puzzle from the Shape & Space A menu. Cuisenaire Rods are essential for this Picture Puzzle. Centicubes can be used as a substitute. Tasks that could be used in this unit are: Building Views Cube Nets Four Cube Houses Keith's Kubes Making Solids Tetrahedron Nets Tricubes Tricube Constructions A Tricube Constructions B Which View? The way a Mixed Media model is designed, tasks are only needed for one third of the class at a time. In a class of 30 students that would be a minimum of 5 tasks, but it's better to have at least 2 more than the minimum.

From The Classroom

Max = 20, Min = 6, Variations = 4 
Max = 21, Min = 11, Variations = 37 
Max = 19, Min = 7, Variations = 5 
Max = 22, Min = 8, Variations = 4 

Follow this link to Task Centre Home page.