The Big Night Out

Submitted by: Tara Pallis
School: Elko Middle

Summary

Like to go to fancy restaurants? Ever go out to eat with your parents and ask why they leave a “tip” for the server? How do they know how much to leave? It is time to see why more money is added or taken off of the bill. A new restaurant wants you to design their menu with appetizers, main courses, sides, desserts, and drinks. Once you have finished designing your menu, switch menus with another group in the classroom. Make sure you choose one that you will enjoy eating at. After choosing what you would like to order, find the tax, tip, and total of your meal with your partner. Once your calculations are complete, create a training video of the step by step process you used to determine your findings. The video will be shared with other students, to help them visualize how tax, tip, and discount are calculated.

TIPC Ratings

1 – Entry: For this lesson, students were directed to search for existing restaurants in order to look at existing products. Search strategies and techniques were not modelled in this lesson. Sources were not cited or evaluated.

2 – Developing: Students were working in groups on the assignment. They had options for using a variety of digital tools. However, there was no tool used in this lesson for digital communication. Communication was limited to the classroom. While students did work together on the product, they did not collaborate digitally.

6 – Ideal/Target: Students justify decision-making and problem solving practices as they create training videos for their peers that explain the process step-by-step. Students select the most appropriate digital tools to think critically and solve open ended authentic tasks that require higher order thinking skills in calculating tax, tip, and total. The students also reflect on their roles as critical thinkers by discussing and showing how they calculated the answers. The teacher facilitates critical thinking problems solving strategies and supports students as they engage in meaningful questioning and problem solving within their menu choices and calculations.

6 – Ideal/Target: Students analyzed existing trends (restaurants) in order to get ideas for their own original restaurant idea. They used their own knowledge of going out to restaurants as they created the menus and created original work. They synthesized research on restaurants, collaborated, and applied critical thinking to come up with an innovative product.