Island Hopping: Developing Precise and Productive Mathematical Language

Andrew Picard, Anna Kops, Elizabeth Kirkby, Kevin Guenther

Teaching Goals
Task Overview
Original Task - First Lesson
Proposed Further Revisions
Conclusions
Student Work
Students will be able to describe pieces of data (islands, examples of graphs) in greater detail
and more specifically than before.
Students will be able to translate the strategies they acquired from describing the islands in
great detail to describing graphs, tables, and equations of linear functions. Students will also be
able to explain their mathematical techniques and methods to others.
Students will be able to use and explain the techniques their group employed to achieve
success.
Students will recognize productive group work, i.e. equitable participation, good listening skills,
no one left behind, etc.

Updated Task - Second Lesson
Revisions after First Lesson
Student Work from Second Lesson
We wanted to explore the versatility of this activity in the second lesson, so our main goals differed from
aiming to describe different representations of linear functions, to more of a skill builder focusing on social
cues in productive group work.
We made the following changes:
Main goal was targeted more towards students understanding of the importance of being able to
describe their thinking to others in a way that person can understand, to prepare students to participate
in a group, and what is expected of them in a group-like setting.
Presented a different, goal oriented, warm-up/exit slip prompt.
Added a whole class discussion, after students had a chance to explore the activity on their own as a
group for approximately 10 minutes, to discuss what each group was experiencing, such as their
strengths and struggles.
Decks of cards were put on thicker paper and color coordinated to prevent students from being able to
sees through the backs of each others cards and to assist in making sure decks did not get mixed up.
This original task was taken from Stanford University (http://www.stanford.edu/class/ed284/csb/).
For this task, students were given a warm-up question that related to the context of the class
(linear functions). To follow up the task, they were instructed to respond to the same prompt as
an exit slip to demonstrate what they took away from the task.

The Task:
Island Maps is an adaptation of Lots Of Dots. It requires that the group DISCUSS AND DECIDE
repeatedly in order to successfully complete the task. As in Lots Of Dots, students will need to:
MAKE A PLAN
AGREE ON STRATEGIES
DESCRIBE ACCURATELY AND CAREFULLY
Directions:
The deck of 36 cards is dealt among the group members face down. The group must discover
which card in the set is a singleton. Each card in the set has one or more duplicates except the
singleton card.

THE RULES
1. Note the time you begin play.
2. Organize your efforts in any way you wish to complete this task within these limitations:
Players may see only those cards dealt to them.
Players may not trade cards.
Players may not draw pictures or diagrams of the maps.
Players must keep their discards in their own separate piles.
Players may talk any way the group decides.

MATERIALS
The Island Maps are presented on the following pages. A copy of the singleton map appears
below
While putting this task together, knowing that we would be teaching two different classes at two
different places in 7th grade curriculums, we knew we would be exploring the versatility of the
task. One class would be focused on how the islands could help students with mathematical
descriptions, while the other would be focused on establishing clear norms for working in groups.
The goal of the task for the first lesson was to expand the observational and analytical skills of
students. The teacher had noticed that in the current unit on linear relationships students could
not derive many observations of graphs, and those that were suggested were not detailed or
precise. Therefore, the goal of this lesson was to increase the detail and the number and depth
of descriptions. We looked for the following aspects in student work:
Level of detail in the descriptions of the islands
Using all of the different information available (i.e. grid lines and labels)
Describing the islands in multiple ways.
Students were given a warm-up prompt asking to describe a given graph. After this, they
compiled a long list of observations about the graph, which was followed by an introduction of
the task and the overall goals for the lesson. Students were then given approximately 30
minutes to find the lonely island. All groups found the original island, and then were given a
new deck with a different island that did not match. Several groups found a second one, and
one found three separate lonely islands.
Following the activity there was a discussion, covering what helped them in this activity and
what did not help. As an exit ticket students were given another graph to describe in as much
detail as possible.
The students response in figure 3 to the pre-prompt is very descriptive; this student seemed to
understand what is expected of her before hand but, it was clear to us that she gained insight
about how to help her group members by being descriptive. This told us that she understood the
importance of being able to explain her thinking in multiple ways.
After the second lesson, our lesson study team discussed several more ways in which this
lesson could be modified and changed for future use, to expand the versatility and scope of the
lesson. Possible changes would include:
Entirely different decks of islands so that students have to describe a whole new set of
islands, rather than the same ones multiple times.
Designating specific roles to group members to practice how students interact when
given roles.
Our assessments in student learning could be changed to fit the goal of the lesson.
For example, if students were assigned roles the exit ticket would be a question
regarding how they worked with their partners and in the roles.
The lesson could be modified in ELL classrooms to help students describe data on a
graph in English rather than students native language.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
From our general observations during the task, we noticed students strategies being altered to
eliminate their struggles after the first discussion round. Students seemed to realize what their
faults were and they were trying to correct them. The changes that the students made after the
first discussion spoke to us that adding in the check-in discussion was an advantage in their
learning and working productively as a group.
Our group came to several conclusions after the two studies. Based on student work and
conversations heard in class, students achieved the respective goals in each lesson. In the first
lesson students were able to generate many more detailed observations after the island
hopping activity than before, and in future classes that trend continued. In the second lesson,
students were able to develop clear strategies for working in groups as well as describe those
strategies. The following day, students demonstrated they were able to use the discussed
strategies while in a group setting, working with mathematics. In addition, this task proved to be
very versatile, having been taught in two separate classrooms which use differing curricula
within a week of each other.
Figure 4
Notice in figure 1 and 2 that the student extended her thinking past working together, including
what working together looks like, as well as initiating a plan.
On the other hand, from figure 4, we found that there may have been students that did not take
away anything as their response was unchanged.
For the second lesson, the teacher used a similar structure to that of the first, but changed the main goal of
the task. From observations during the first lesson, the teacher made a few changes in structure and
presentation, for example, the islands were put on card stock to prevent from being able to see thru the back
side.

The second lesson was taught in a different class with a different curriculum but the teacher had been
wanting to experiment with setting group work norms, leading up to the exploration of this task. The teacher
set the main goal for the task to be aimed around students taking away what their role, as well as group
members roles, should be during a group task. Things we were looking for included the following:
Participation from all members, whether its asking questions or explaining to others
Trying to explain in multiple ways for others to understand descriptions/explanations
Working as a team-not talking over one another, making sure everyone is on the same page
Initiating a plan before beginning task

Students were given 3 minutes to respond to the following warm-up prompt: Describe your idea of a
productive group; think about your roles, as well as other group members roles, as a productive group
member. Teacher gave students a short introduction of task, as they were seated in groups of 3 or 4, they
were then to begin the task. After about 15 minutes, teacher interrupted students to debrief about their
successes and struggles in their groups. They were then able to continue the task, making any
accommodations. Teacher ended class with 10 minutes to have another discussion about anything they
changed after the first discussion and what they learned about working as a productive group. Students
were to reply to the same prompt from the beginning of class, as their ticket out of the door.

Adding in the first discussion was intended to help students discover what they needed to change about
their social tendencies while in a group setting. They were to make any changes to their group that they
thought would benefit their success in the task, and eliminate their struggles.
These two examples contain student work from both the
start and the end of the lesson. The work at the top of
each paper is the students observations of the first
graph, before the activity. After a small gap you can see
the work from the end of the lesson.
As you can see, there are many more examples after the
lesson than before. In addition, the detail level of those
observations is much higher, and they are explain every
little thing that they see on their given graph. The work
here was standard throughout the class that received the
first lesson, and there were no students who did not
have more observations at the end of the class.