Lesson 21

Different Ways to Solve Problems

Lesson Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is for students to represent and solve multi-step contextual problems involving multiplication and division, including division with remainders.

Lesson Narrative

In this lesson, students analyze and use various strategies and representations to reason about multi-step problems. They use their knowledge of multiplication and division, including the ideas of factors and multiples, to represent situations. Students also interpret products, quotients, and remainders in context (MP2).

  • Representation
  • MLR7

Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Interpret products, quotients, and remainders in terms of a situation.
  • Solve multi-step problems in ways that make sense to students.

Student Facing

  • Let’s reason about and solve multi-step problems.

Required Materials

Materials to Copy

  • Going on a Field Trip

Required Preparation

CCSS Standards

Addressing

Lesson Timeline

Warm-up 10 min
Activity 1 20 min
Activity 2 15 min
Lesson Synthesis 10 min
Cool-down 5 min

Teacher Reflection Questions

In the first activity, students had to make sense of strategies, explanations, and representations that were not their own. What did students say or do that showed the exercise was effective in expanding their view of problem solving?

Suggested Centers

  • Compare (1–5), Stage 7: Multi-digit Operations (Addressing)
  • Watch Your Remainder (4–5), Stage 1: One-digit Divisors (Addressing)

Print Formatted Materials

For access, consult one of our IM Certified Partners.

Additional Resources

Google Slides

For access, consult one of our IM Certified Partners.

PowerPoint Slides

For access, consult one of our IM Certified Partners.