HCL Worthy Task Selection, 3rd grade

Selected Problem:

Sakshaug, L.E., Olson, M. & Olson, J. Touring washington d.c. Teaching Children .
. Mathematics, 15, 26-28.

Solution:
What I Know:
● We have to visit every location on the map
● There is more than one way to move between the locations
● Different paths between locations have different values
● The range of values for the different individual paths is from 4 - 29
● I think I might want to avoid the longer paths (like 29) to get the shortest distance
 ● There are many different paths you could take that get you to all ten locations
● I have to finish at the same spot I start at
● I can take some paths more than once
● I don’t have to use every path on the map
What I Want to Know:
● What is the shortest distance possible to get to every location on the map?
● Is there more than one possible answer?
● Is there a more efficient way of testing paths than guess and check?
What I Can Bring/Introduce:
● I made a table where I could record the different paths I was trying and their
distances to look for patterns in which paths yielded the shortest results

I think it’s really interesting that I keep getting the same two distances, 160
and 164. This makes sense because although I’m trying different path
arrangements and starting points, I’m still adding up (mostly) the same
numbers in the end.
● One strategy that seems to work well is utilizing and starting near the shorter
path distances.
Solution:
● The solutions can greatly vary due to the fact that there are many different
aspects to consider and variations that can be done. For example, some
students will want to start and end at the same point, some may choose to visit
fewer monuments, and others may decide that they don’t want to retrace a path.
● The shortest distance we found was 127, using a label of miles. This allowed us
to visit every site on the map.
● One way we had solved this was by writing down all of the landmark letters and
putting a check next to the letter as we visited that landmark. We kept track of the
number of miles by writing them below the letters and adding them up at the end
of the journey.
 ● When referring back to Teaching Children Mathematics, some students were
able to find a path totalling 60 minutes (their unit of choice.) Although it must be
noted that they visited fewer sites.
● The students in Teaching Children Mathematics used tree diagrams and simply
writing their path down on paper to keep track of the route and miles (or
minutes).
Reflection:
● The ideas and process are more important than finding the correct answer for
this problem.
● I believe to adapt this problem for an hour spent with third graders, it would be
appropriate to create a map with fewer sites to stop at. I think our map should
have five or six sites instead of ten.

Pedagogy:
This problem will be great for the third graders because the actual procedural
mathematics required is basic (adding one- and two-digit numbers), yet the
mathematical thinking that finding and defending a solution requires is much more
complex. There is no one obvious way to find the “right answer” so each student can
approach this problem in a different way and find success. It’s also possible to tailor this
problem to create varying levels of difficulty. For example, students could start by
solving for five different landmarks, and eventually work their way up to ten landmarks.
There is a lot of room for creativity and extended thinking. I appreciate that this problem
has a real-life context that students can connect to (maps, choosing how to get from A
to B) to add meaning and relevance to the mathematics. This problem also naturally
lends itself well to mathematical discussions. There’s the obvious discussion of what
solutions are being found and the method they used to find their solution, but you can
also have other discussions about the (purposefully unlabeled) units and what would
make sense to use, what considerations they find most important in a good path (i.e.
should all sites be visited? Why or why not? Should you repeat a section of the path
more than once? Why do you think so?) Lastly, this problem creates opportunities for
students to explore patterns. When solving, they are able to see which routes provide
them with the shortest routes and compare and contrast their results throughout the
problem-solving process.

Alignment:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NBT.A.2
Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place
value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and
subtraction.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.D.8
Solve real world and mathematical problems involving perimeters of polygons, including
finding the perimeter given the side lengths, finding an unknown side length, and
exhibiting rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area
and different perimeters.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of

others.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP6 Attend to precision

Questions and Prompts:

● What labels could we use? Minutes? Hours? Miles? Kilometers?
● What do we know? What do we want to know? How will we get there?
● Consider some strategies that could be used to solve this problem. What would
be a reasonable entry point?
● Would it be better to see more sites, but have longer path? Or see fewer sites but
have a shorter path?
● Would you spend time at the monuments? Should this be considered when
finding the shortest distance?
● If we wanted to visit all of the sites on the map, could it be done without visiting a
site twice? In other words, can all of the sites be visited exactly once?
● Can all of the sites be visited without retracing a path?
● Should we start and end at the same location?