This is a new type of activity I am working on, with the catchy name of Fill in the gaps. It is my attempt to replicate some of my favourite Standards Units card sort activities, but with less cutting and some elements of variation.
Whilst it still fits under my definition of Intelligent Practice (and as such, the guidance notes for running these types of activities should still be useful), I see these more of a revision activity. I use them as a way of bringing together several concepts, challenging students to work forwards and backwards across rows, to ensure they do not get tied into one way of thinking.
I may start these types of activities with an Example-Problem Pair or, depending on the class and the situation, I may just give out the activity cold.
I have animated the PowerPoint so you can click on the boxes in any order to reveal each answer. This allows flexibility for students to describe the order they solved each problem during the whole class discussion.
Watching students work through these is fascinating. Most focus their attention across the page, moving forwards and backwards across each row. In the whole class discussion that follows, I am then able to direct their attention to relationships that exists between the rows.
Anyway, I hope you and your students find these Fill in the gaps activities useful. I have a few up my sleeve that I am currently trying out, and I am always open to contributions from others!
1. Example-Problem Pair
2. Intelligent Practice
3. Answers
4. Downloadable version
5. Alternative versions
- Same questions, but with bar modelling in the examples, written by Stephen Blinkhorn here.