Comments on: Formula Sheet – A Toolbox or Takeout Menu?

By: Cleargrace

Cleargrace — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:11:26 +0000

I had my students looking at a video two days ago, then we looked at it again to take notes and make drawings – the unit circle basics. I realized the kids weren’t focusing on any of this, and I asked them to predict, based on what the woman on the video did, what she was going to do next, and write that down. Then I played the video a little further and we started looking at the guesses, and why some kids thought one thing and others went a different way. While I have used the three act and 101 questions and 180 pictures with them before, it never occurred to me to let them predict for a video. The whole class was engaged from that point forward. The same thing happened with some material on the board. A young man’s eyes were glazing over. He said he was bored (I told him that’s why they call it a board!) anyway, I had him look at the problem and ask me any question he had. He wanted to know why I replaced the f(x) with y. At that point several others chimed in and said they wanted to know that too. It led to a great class discussion and more questions. There was even a brief discussion about how learning happens. The quiz on translating from radians to degrees and back to radians came out much better, and the kids were excited about what they learned. They really want to pull this stuff from memory….

By: Evan Weinberg

Evan Weinberg — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:41:15 +0000

In reply to Cleargrace.

Good points. Modeling what to do with these resources is important, and is definitely part of the process. The problem isn’t that they don’t know how to use the tool though. The bigger issue, I think, is that it’s just easier to look for a solution on the paper than do the thinking of what they need first, and then get what they need from the sheet.

I had a student today ask me what the highest speed of a running human was. I was about to look it up because I was curious, and then I stopped.

‘Look it up online’, I said.

‘What do I look up?’

‘Try something.’

Once she had some search results to work with, we had a conversation about parsing them for the answer she was looking for.

The step of just asking the teacher is easy. Looking it up is harder, though not necessarily difficult.

The step of looking on the equation sheet for an answer is easy. Deciding what information you have, what you need, and the connection between them – that’s not only more challenging, but a more valuable exercise for students to go through.

By: Cleargrace

Cleargrace — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:04:23 +0000

Many of my students don’t use any of the reference materials available to them. The students who do, do better overall, on assignments, quizzes, and tests. I agree with the strategy of having these students create their own reference materials: a vocabulary sheet with a definition that is more “how to use” than textbook, with example(s), a step by step on 3×5 card, visuals of parent graphs (they draw the graph), formulas with each part defined (and notes on where/what those parts look like within a problem) and lots more. I watch them create these helps, and like your questioning, I look/ask to see what they feel is important, what they feel they need to remember. I ask questions about the connections they are making between what they are creating (the reference) and how they might use it to help solve future challenges. Then I give a quiz where they have to use the resource to complete the quiz. Again, some do, most don’t. The quiz then becomes it’s own lesson in using the resource. It’s pulling teeth to get many students to use the resource! The quizzes are a start, though, because I don’t even give the hints to questioners who don’t use their helps. Having said that, there are students who don’t create good reference materials. They don’t have good writing, or don’t have coherent thought patterns – I have to design a guided note or activity page, but the realization that this is valuable tool seems lost on students. To overcome this block, I review with them as if I was actually studying, creating brief notes that they take down, think alouds, really. I model using the reference materials they have created (going around the room, picking up their materials). I am open to more good ideas on this –