I've since seen a task similar to this (but probably much better) that was designed by the late, great, Malcom Swan but at the time I created this task I was taking inspiration from the ATM publication 'practicing mathematics'. I will post screen shots of the excellent Malcom Swan task at the end of this blog post.
The first task involved them putting the expressions in ascending order based on their values. The next step requires them to create their own expression that, with the given values of x and y, would be third in the order. The third step involves students getting to choose their own values of x and y but with the constraint that the order of the cards must change.
To build on this task I wanted to give the students a more open ended problem to explore. This time they had to come up with their own six cards and then start to play around with the expressions on their cards to meet the constraints given below.
I feel a lot safer trying tasks like the first than the second but I know that working on my delivery of open tasks is something I want to commit to because I think they can be such a rich experience for the students.
Find a downloadable version of the tasks above here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RSKgleAesxp8pi1i8mTCbE8sc1LbF06X/view?usp=sharing
Now what you've all been waiting for - Malcom Swan's tasks as mentioned above.
