Three-Act Tasks: Creative Means of Engaging Authentic Mathematical Thinking Through Multimedia Storytelling

Abstract

Three-Act mathematics tasks provide opportunities for P–12 learners to engage in creative problem posing, exploration, and problem solving through video storytelling. Because they are innovative and relatively new, preservice and inservice teachers may not be familiar with evaluating, creating, and implementing Three-Act Tasks. In this chapter, we describe our design process for developing a rubric to evaluate and scaffold these creative multimedia mathematical stories. The rubric draws on four broad areas of literature for its theoretical grounding: (1) research on selecting and posing high cognitive demand tasks for mathematical problem solving, (2) use of story arc for contextual relevance, (3) research on assessing and measuring creativity, and (4) principles of effective multimedia message design and use of story arc. The rubric developed insures a Three-Act Task attends to mathematical concepts, effective use of digital technologies, and creative thinking. It is designed to serve as a guideline for preservice and inservice teachers as they select or create Three-Act Tasks to use in their classrooms.