Long time, no see!

My goodness!  It sure has been a long time since I've posted anything.

I just wanted to reflect on something I tried in my Algebra III class yesterday and today.  I was reading one of my many emails from Dan Meyer when I stumbled onto a comment by a Daniel Schaben.  Daniel talked about the problem of cutting squares out of paper to make a box.  I was intrigued, so I gave it a shot.

I had some very different boxes, but overall the students seemed to get the idea.  After they made all of the boxes, I just posed the question, "Now that we have all of these boxes, what math can we do with them?"  To my shock and awe, they said things like find the area and volume.  This launched into a conversation on what makes a box a "good" box.  Eventually, with a little tooth pulling, we were able to get the function for volume and discussed maximum volume and domain and range of our function.

Now the question I pose, which I really hope someone reads and and replies is this.

I've learned so much about good teaching strategies over the past four years.  What I really need now are good assessment strategies!  HELP!!!