Session 1

Grade Band 6-8. Identify and Use Proportional Relationships (Grade 7)

(20 to 40 minutes)

Step 1: Get Prepared
Step 2: Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check

Step 1

Get Prepared! Before the Lesson

(15 to 30 minutes):

Directions:

Gather materials and review the lesson.
You will need copies of the following handouts. Make copies or turn on computers.
Classroom setting: Group students in pairs or teams of four.

Step 2

Think: Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check

Getting Students Ready: (5 to 10 minutes)

Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check Task:

Writing a Novel

Readiness Check Tasks:

Directions:

Use these tasks to determine if the student(s) are ready to engage with the Identify and Use Proportional Relationships lesson.
Assessing student skills: Look for the student(s) to be able to complete both tasks with little or no math help. For example, with a quick clarification of instructions or reading the prompt aloud, the student knows where to start and gets to work.
- Classroom Setting: Circulate the room, checking student progress as they work.
- Non-classroom Setting: Observe as the student completes the Fluency Check tasks.
Give yourself enough time to check the student(s)’s responses before continuing with the Proportional Relationships lesson. If a student scores at least 80% correct on each Fluency Check, they are ready to engage with the following lesson.
- Equivalent Ratios Answer Key
- Coordinate Graphing Answer Key

Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check Task:

Writing a Novel

Directions:

Before you begin the Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check, make sure you have gathered all your materials, reviewed the lesson, and have a dedicated area for students to work.
Students will complete this task as a warm-up to the lesson.
Assessing student skills
- Classroom Setting: Circulate the room, checking student progress as they work. Select and sequence student strategies that should be shared with the class during the next part of the lesson.
- Non-classroom Setting: As the student finishes the task, check and discuss the work together. Later you will compare the student’s work to two possible work samples.

Directions for Giving the Task:

Give students a copy of Writing a Novel (Pre-Assessment). Read through the prompt and ask students to complete the task on their own.

Decorative question mark:

Why are students doing this/what are they going to get out of it?

This part of the lesson is designed to activate prior knowledge of equivalent ratios and unit rates and verify students are ready to engage in the lesson.

Directions for Scoring & Understanding Student Responses

While students are doing the pre-knowledge check, you will want to be watching for their processes and their results. When they feel ready to share, look at their responses and chat with the students. Use the suggestions below to help decide if they “got it” or are still struggling with this skill.

Sample Thinking Prompts:

Common Problems	Question to Pose to Student
Student does not know how to start	What’s happening in this situation? What things are being measured in the problem? What measurements go together?
Student makes a model (double number line, table, picture, etc) but gets lost in the details. Example: Student makes a Days/Pages table and has started writing the numbers 1-60 in the Days column.	Do you need all of these pieces to get to the number of pages on Day 17?
Student writes the expression 300÷60✕17 but is struggling with the division.	How many 60s does it take to get to 300? Have you tried skip counting?
Student starts writing numbers from the problem on their paper but does not appear to know why.	Talk to me about this number. How come you’re putting it here?

The Answer:
The answer to this problem is 85 pages. Sam will write 5 pages each day, so on day 17 they will have written 85 pages.

PLEASE NOTE: The next piece of the lesson looks at answers that students give to this problem. This problem will be addressed in more depth in the next section. The intention is not to grade this activity but to use it to gauge what knowledge the student brings with them to the lesson.

If students were unable to grasp the skills in the Pre-Lesson Knowledge Check or provided incorrect answers, they should review the skills needed before this lesson. See the section above, “Progression of Skills” for ideas and resources. Otherwise, proceed to the next section.

"why are students doing this/what are they going to get out of it": This part of the lesson is designed to activate prior knowledge of equivalent ratios and unit rates and verify students are ready to engage in the lesson.

Focus: MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them

Stop: This is the end of this session. This is a good place to stop, take a break, and return to the next session later in the day or the next day.

Step 3

Visit the Resource Bank to learn more.

Model & Think: Math Lesson (90 - 125 minutes):

Activity: