Okay, that's a flat out exaggeration but it's truth in some of my students' eyes! While studying probability, we talked about Subway's renowned Jared and how boring eating subs twice a day for a year would be. We did a little math to see how many different possibilities Jared actually had to choose from and the kids were blown away by the results. Well, okay, most of the students showed their astonishment with perhaps a raised eyebrow and a small smirk of a smile but one of my classes truly did get excited about the idea. So excited to the point where they decided they wanted to write Subway and tell them to advertise the numbers of choices customers have since people enjoy having options. As a typical teacher, my first reaction inside my head is *gasp! That means my classes would be in different places!?* and I quickly shoved that thought aside and decided to embrace one of the keys of excellence from Quantum Learning... Flexibility!
This "letter" turned into a 3 day project in which they were separated into different groups:
Writers (those writing the persuasive letter to Subway)
Math Gurus (those writing/drawing diagrams to explain the math behind it all)
Researchers (those looking up the number of foods in each category)
The Basics (A group finding the results for choices in only bread, types of meat, and sides)
Vegetarian Options (A group finding the results for choices for everything vegetarian)
Everything (A group finding the results for all of the above plus veggies/sauces...)
It was really interesting letting kids choose the group they want to be a part of. I thought no one would choose letter writing or math gurus but sure enough, those were the fastest groups to fill up!
I took a picture of them, put it all together, and sent it on to the headquarters.
And no matter how many times I tell them that we'll be lucky to get a letter back, they all expect to see their faces on a Subway commercial any day now. But I do have to give them credit- they related math directly to the real world and really put in time/effort to make it happen! I'm proud of their hard work. I guess that was my little insight into Project Based Learning.
