Homework: Goals and Structure

Recent Homework assignments:  (mostly available as Word documents) HW#1       HW#2         HW#3     HW#4     HW#5      HW#6   HW#7   HW#8 Solution Keys:  HW_keys#1to#8 What are our main goals in assigning homework? Provide thoughtful practice, not drill. Hopefully in an independent setting, without help, so we can see how the learning is going. To allow for long periods of …

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Part 2 of “What Does Remediation Look Like?” Michael’s silence. Plus Exploding Dots.

In our last blog, we asked, “How do we humans react to confusion and difficulty?” Amelia claims grumpily “I don’t get the multiply and divide by 10 thing.” She tends to get grumpy when confused. Michael withdraws into silence. “Shall we get the blocks for this, Michael?” Silence. “Which part is confusing?” Silence. Sigh. Tomas …

Part 2 of “What Does Remediation Look Like?” Michael’s silence. Plus Exploding Dots. Read More »

What Does Remediation Look Like? Aka “Bring Your Knitting”

How do we humans react to confusion and difficulty? Amelia claims grumpily “I don’t get the multiply and divide by 10 thing.” She tends to get grumpy when confused. Tomas minimizes his struggles. “I’m fine now. I was just confused on yesterday’s quiz. I’m good now.” Nicole writes notes to us on her quiz. “I …

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Looking at Quizzes- Part 1 … How are we doing?

Quiz #1 as a Word Document:   Question 1, Fractions.  It’s Payoff Time!  We’ve been having students draw  fractions only for weeks now. Weeks! We are gradually increasing the difficulty of the questions, to cover addition, subtraction and multiplication of fractions. We assign about 1 problem a day.  And… drumroll…90% got this problem right now. It …

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Galaxies, Pennies and Grains of Rice

Learning is an emotional pursuit. A teacher’s most powerful ally is success. Students who can see (“feel”!) their own progress will bring up the perseverance needed to master each new concept. However, there are times when math should just be fascinating. When we should all step back and say “Wow”.