UPDATE 1/26/2021 – Here is my up-to-date Wakelet collection of Valentine’s Day resources.
Around this time last year, I wrote about using the “Would You Rather?” format for math problems. This idea was brought to my attention when Richard Byrne posted about John Stevens’ awesome site where he regularly publishes these challenges. If you have middle-high school age students, I highly recommend that you check out John’s blog.
Because my students are younger, I made a series of my own “Would You Rather” questions last year. A few of them tied into Valentine’s Day. You can access the problems and download the slides for your own use here.
I rolled out the set a couple of weeks ago for new groups of students to try. I decided this year to give them a format for their answers. I wanted to make sure they not only answer the question, but show their math and cite any resources they used (we haven’t worked on formal citations yet, as you might notice). As you can see from some of the examples below, the sheet the students fill in has evolved a bit to make it a little more visually pleasing.
The students are allowed to choose any of the problems they like to work on. It can be interesting to see their preferences. What’s fun is that even the students who choose the same exact questions can have completely different correct answers.
I’ve been meaning to make some more of these because I like the multiple steps necessary, what the students learn about searching the web for information (they are working on finding reliable sources right now), and the writing needed to describe their thoughts. However, I haven’t had the chance to add to the collection. In the meantime, feel free to use the ones from last year and let me know if you have any suggestions! And here is a link to the PDF for my latest iteration of journal sheets for these challenges.
