3rd Grade Unit 0: Growth Mindset

Unit Driving Question 

How does mindset affect learning of mathematics?

Big Ideas 

1. Math is about learning, not about performing
2. Math is about learning, not about performing
3. Math is filled with conjectures, creativity, and uncertainty.
4. Mistakes are beautiful things.

Resources

• Jo Boaler Week of Inspiration: This is a suggested resource that gives you multiple weeks’ worth of lessons and videos to engage your students’ thinking. They will learn to look at problems in a different way and discover other strategies that can be helpful in a variety of mathematical contexts.

• There are three weeks that have been developed in the past few years:

• Week of Inspirational Math 2015

• Week of Inspirational Math 2016

• Week of Inspirational Math 2017

Initial Task 

Daniel’s BBQ: This task has students analyze the amount of people attending a barbeque based on the number of people guests invite. It will challenge students to think outside of the box versus use a basic math problem to solve for the answer.

Big Idea 1: Math is about learning, not about performing

Focus of Understandings

• Develop a Productive Mathematical Disposition

• Student actions support the idea that everyone can learn mathematics.

• Develop Accurate and Appropriate Procedural Fluency

• Students development of fluency should be over time and should not be equated to speed. 

Big Idea 2: Math is about learning, not about performing

Focus of Understandings

• Develop a Productive Mathematical Disposition

• Students explain that learning math with understanding takes time because of deep mathematical reasoning.

• Develop Mathematical Reasoning

• Students focus on understanding mathematics and ask questions in order for the mathematics to make sense.

• Develop a Deep and Flexible Conceptual Understanding

• Students make connections to prior knowledge in order to better comprehend mathematical concepts.

• Develop Strategies for Problem Solving

• Students use different methods/strategies to illustrate how they understand mathematics. 

Big Idea 3: Math is filled with conjectures, creativity, and uncertainty.

Focus of Understandings

• Develop a Productive Mathematical Disposition

• Students will persevere and become resilient, effective problem solvers.

• Develop the Ability to Make Conjectures, Model, and Generalize

• Students make conjectures, explain and justify their thinking, as well as the thinking of others.

• Develop the Ability to Communicate Mathematically

• Students explain how math can be creative and can give examples of creative math. 

Big Idea 4: Mistakes are beautiful things.

Focus of Understandings

• Develop a Productive Mathematical Disposition

• Students explain the role mistakes play in learning and growing their brains.
• Students set goals and reflect on their learning, making adjustments as they work toward their goals.

• Develop Mathematical Reasoning

• Students will recognize when they make mistakes and logically critique misconceptions.