Ms. Cotton's Corner

I am really excited about Info-Gap Math Activities right now! If you’ve never tried an Info-Gap, read on, and be sure to download the freebie!

The purpose of an Info-Gap is to get kids talking about math. They ask questions, they clarify, they think about what they need to know. Those skills are so important in math class, and they mirror the way math comes to us in the real world. Sometimes you have context, but not enough information. Sometimes you have lots of information, but no context, so you aren’t sure what to do with it. That’s what the Info-Gap helps kids learn to grapple with.

In an Info-Gap problem, each student has a card which they do not show to the other student. One card might look like this:

As you can imagine, the student is generally full of questions like, “How much do the puzzles cost?” and “What kind of puzzles were they?” and “Where is this toy store?”

Some of the questions will be pertinent, and some won’t. The first few times students try this routine, they will go off on tangents. That’s great! Knowing what not to ask is almost as important as knowing what you should ask!

The other card looks something like this:

As you can see, this card contains all the information that the other student needs, and even some that they don’t! Since the students cannot see each other’s cards, they have to ask each other questions to find out what the other person knows. The freebie has a sample conversation that you can use to model it for your students.

Once students agree that they both understand the problem, they work together to solve it. Then, they switch roles and try another. I always do Info-Gaps in pairs so that both students practice each part.

Once the kids learn the routine, you will find that they are asking the right questions most of the time, clarifying their thinking, and building their precise math vocabulary. This routine not only helps students master content, it also helps them:

1. MP1 – Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. MP2 – Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. MP6 – Attend to precision.

The Mathematical Practice Standards are built in to this protocol. I have seen real growth in my students’ understanding of how to approach word problems, logical reasoning skills and communication (both listening and asking questions!) because of this routine. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments section!

Did you download the freebie already? 🙂