Getting Started

This is a website about getting students to make a choice and justifying their reasoning.  Multiple choice answers are not welcome here.  Correct answers are not necessarily the norm.  Oftentimes, we have options as to how we reach our solutions.  The goals for the site are as follows:

• Evolve. Suggestions, critiques, and comments will only enhance the material that gets uploaded.  Guest submissions are encouraged
• Intrigue.  Much like Andrew Stadel does with www.estimation180.com, Fawn Nguyen has done with www.visualpatterns.org, and Dan Meyer has done with www.101qs.com, this is just another way to pique the interest of students or teachers searching for something different in a math classroom.
• Engage.  This is something that is being created out of necessity for something different.  If it is so far different that it’s useless, then it’s a waste of time.  Time will tell in that regard, but hopefully the evolution and intrigue will guide the engagement.

The basis of the site stems from a school wide goal at my previous site to get students to use complete sentences for justifying their rationale when asked a “would you rather?” prompt.  While I applaud the effort, the material got pretty watered down and became difficult to buy in.  Breaking away from that model, while still wanting students to think and justify their process, Estimation 180 emerged.  If you haven’t checked it out, do yourself a favor and get over there at some point.

The problem with using 180 all the time is that I’ll be teaching two different classes and would like to keep things fresh. I don’t want sophomores coming in saying that they’ve already done the estimations.  Even though Stadel is refreshing his content, I’m looking for something entirely different and more catered to secondary students as a conversation starter.

Please feel free to contribute, critique, and help me turn this into something useful.