Baker's Choice - An alternative unit on linear equations and inequalities for high school mathematics
On this page, you will find an electronic portfolio of my work and reflections on a unit of high school mathematics called Baker's Choice. Baker's Choice is an 18 day unit on linear programming as part of the Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP).
Cover letter
The central problem presented in the Baker's Choice unit is one of a small bakery owned by the Woos. The Woos make two types of cookies at their bakery, plain cookies and cookies with icing. They need a mathematician to look at their business and decide how many cookies they should make for the following day in order to maximize their profits, like any small business would want. Maximizing their profits involves looking at many different variables and constraints of the business. The constraints of the problem (i.e. the bakery) are as followed:
The central problem of Baker's Choice may seem overwhelming to a high school algebra student, but the unit does a great job breaking down the required concepts and skills needed to solve the problem into smaller, more digestible tasks in order to build the knowledge necessary to tackle the central problem of the unit. Through several homework assignments and problems of the week, the students will learn how to express and interpret constraints through inequalities, graph linear inequalities, find the maximum of a linear function in a polygonal region, examine parameters of a problem, draw feasible regions of inequalities, and solve linear programming problems with two variables.
In order to better teach an interactive and engaging unit like this in my future high school mathematics class, I participated in the problem solving process of the Baker's Choice unit. Below are links to selected works and activities assigned throughout the unit that demonstrate some of the concepts and skills listed above and a personal growth statement reflecting on the unit.
Selected Works
Personal Growth
The central problem presented in the Baker's Choice unit is one of a small bakery owned by the Woos. The Woos make two types of cookies at their bakery, plain cookies and cookies with icing. They need a mathematician to look at their business and decide how many cookies they should make for the following day in order to maximize their profits, like any small business would want. Maximizing their profits involves looking at many different variables and constraints of the business. The constraints of the problem (i.e. the bakery) are as followed:
- One dozen of their plain cookies requires a pound of cookie dough, 0.1 hours of preparation time, cost $4.50 to make, and sells for $6.00.
- One dozen of their iced cookies requires 0.7 pounds of cookie dough, 0.4 pounds of icing, 0.15 hours of preparation, cost $5 to make, and sells for $7.00.
- They have only 110 pounds of cookie dough and 32 pounds of icing on hand.
- They only have enough oven space to make a total of 140 dozen cookies for tomorrow.
- The have a maximum of 15 hours of total preparation time.
The central problem of Baker's Choice may seem overwhelming to a high school algebra student, but the unit does a great job breaking down the required concepts and skills needed to solve the problem into smaller, more digestible tasks in order to build the knowledge necessary to tackle the central problem of the unit. Through several homework assignments and problems of the week, the students will learn how to express and interpret constraints through inequalities, graph linear inequalities, find the maximum of a linear function in a polygonal region, examine parameters of a problem, draw feasible regions of inequalities, and solve linear programming problems with two variables.
In order to better teach an interactive and engaging unit like this in my future high school mathematics class, I participated in the problem solving process of the Baker's Choice unit. Below are links to selected works and activities assigned throughout the unit that demonstrate some of the concepts and skills listed above and a personal growth statement reflecting on the unit.
Selected Works
Personal Growth