Salvit Article

As I was reading this article I thought he was doing this activity with middle school students, missed the part where he said it could be adapted for middle school and he was doing this investigation with college students. As I was reading I was thinking "Wow, these kids are coming up with some good reasoning and discussions" Now that I know it was college kids, it makes sense. In my experience, if I were to give this to my kids they would just sit there and say "I don't get it." It is much easier to do activities like these if the students are willing to paticipate and throw ideas out there.

This article went back to the previous article we had read about letting students figure things out for themselves. I do agree with the notion that if students figure out defitions or concepts on their own they will be more likely to remember them. It also helps if a "real-world" application is also presented so they can see the use. 

Overall, I did like the article and if I taught Geometry I would be willing to use it in class and see if I got the same responses he did.

Spring Break

My spring break is also March 23-27. At this time I do not have plans to go anywhere, but that could change.

I am interested in learning more about......

How I could incorporate Geometry into Algebra

Master's Project

I am not sure what I want to do for my Master's project. Between Logo and Geometer's Sketchpad I like Geometer's Sketchpad better and think it would be more useful to me. I like the idea of taking pictues and putting lines on them. Since I teach Algebra my students would find it useful to look at equations of lines and slopes. 

Though I like this idea, I would like to do something a little more original. I also want to do something that I can use in the classroom later on.

Success!!!

Yesterday (Friday) I had my Algebra students work on a problem solving question and they actually came to the conclusion they were supposed to! We are getting into Systems of Equations and the first step is to solve by graphing. I gave them a question where a person had to choose between two health clubs based on their monthly rate and price per visit, the students had to figure out which club was cheaper.  All of the groups were able to successfully graph both lines and come to the conclusion that it depended on how many times she went. At 4 visits the price was the same, less than 4 one club was cheaper, and more than 4 the other club was cheaper.  Each group had to make a poster of their answer. The poster had to have the x,y chart for both lines, the graph of the lines, and the answer to the problem. I was very impressed with the work they did.

Now, I have to confess that I did get them started before I let them loose on their own.  I did tell them that the easiest way to go about this was making an x,y chart and start at 0. They did fill in the values and graph them on thier own. 

Making Students Think for Themselves.....Ummm

I just read Mark Pinkerton's last post and I totally agree with him. If students come up with idea's and conclusions on their own they are much more likely to remember them and be able to explain those concepts or defitions to someone else. I have been trying this concept more and more in my Algebra classes, the only problem is my students do not want to figure things out on their own, they just want me to tell them what do to (are mine the only ones like this?). If I give them a word problem they come straight to me and say "I don't get it", lately I have been giving them a worksheet where the answers are listed and if done correctly the answers will spell an answer to a riddle. Do my students use this information in order to try to figure out how to work out the problem......NO. They anwer the riddle, which in turn gives them the answer to the problems, and then claim they are finished. Keep in mind that they do not get any credit for doing this, they must show work to get credit. 

I do not want to make it sound like all of my students do this, there are some who do figure concepts out on their own and they are the students who end up doing will on the Test and Quizzes.