Two Truths and A Lie

I saw something on Twitter which made me want to explore the idea more.  I thought it sounded great and would add something to my math class.  The technique is called "Two Truths and a Lie".

The idea behind it is the teacher provides either a math problem or graphic and they are responsible for creating two truths and a lie about it.

The students then share their truths and lie with the other students to see if the others can determine which are which.  Once the lie is identified, it has to be corrected so it is now true.

The cool thing about this activity is that it encourages deeper thinking especially if you require a bit more than the obvious such as the line is straight, there are two dots, its pink.  You'd have to model what is expected such as the linear equation has a slope of -1/2, the values are decreasing, or it does not have a constant slope.  The third would be a lie.  When they identify the lie, they have to explain what it should be so it is now a truthful statement. 

In addition, it requires students to use mathematical language when they are writing so they are able to develop and extend their base vocabulary.  We are always looking for ways to increase writing in math and this provides it beautifully.  There are at least four ways this activity can be used in the classroom.

1.  It can be used during the warmup by showing students a picture or problem with the three statements already on them so the students just need to identify the lie and explain why its a lie or you can put a picture up and let the students create their own two truths and lie.

2. Create a gallery walk out of the student creations.  Post them around the classroom and have students visit each one to determine which are truth and which are lies.  Students can work individually or in small groups.  If they work in small groups, student can create one note with an explanation they worked out together.

3. Take several pictures and place them around the room with one statement that is either true or false.  You can let students know ahead of time how many of each there are but they have to determine if they are true or false and justify their answer.

4.  Guess who in which one student at a time gets up to share their two true and one false statement with the class, even going so far as to identify which are true and false.  The job of the students are to guess what is being described. This requires analytical thought.

5.  This activity can also be used with vocabulary words to help student develop better usage of words especially words which have different levels of meanings such as product, sum, etc. 

6.  Have students work three problems so two answers are correct and one is incorrect.  Divide students into groups of two and they exchange papers.  Each one has to figure out which problem is incorrect before correcting it and explaining why it was incorrect.

I think these are some great ways to use this ice breaker activity in class.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.    Remember, many of thee activities can be done via Padlet, on white boards or on paper.