Story problems could be so much more exciting and technology is the way to take them there. For the longest time math story problems have been hated by pretty much everyone. Even my teachers hated them but threw them in with our homework and tests because they were part of the curriculum and we needed to be ready for the ones that we saw on the tests. As a result of this last minute unwanted addition, and the fact that they were created by math teachers, story problems are notoriously boring and dull. Not any more. Students should be creating the story problems for their classmates. After today, I now have some great ideas how:
- Students are given a math topic and shown 4-6 pictures that have to all be incorporated into a backstory and problem that needs to be solved. Students have 20 minutes as groups to write the story including the problem and then stories are traded with another group to solve.
- Collaborating with another teacher could reveal links that can be incorporated into stories. For instance, if the students in the class are studying Romeo and Juliet in English, story problems could be broken up into acts from the play and incorporate characters and settings.
Story problems will never know what hit them!
Ugh, my comment didn't show up... so I'm gonna try again.
ReplyDeleteI've also had the plan in mind to have students write their own story problems and even non-story problems. I think it would be fun to pick three random ones to be on the test. This is a great way to involve the students in their own learning. Collaborating with teachers both in your content and out is a great idea for promoting transfer of knowledge. Thank you for your ideas! I think your math class would be fun and engaging!
-Lily
I forgot to add that having students create videos is a great way to have them use creativity and technology and they'd be fun to view in class like what we did today. You have some awesome plans! Have you put much thought into the idea of having the students teach a subject? I did a lesson once where students had time in class to research a given topic and create some sort of presentation and then had to teach the class. They also had materials provided for examples that they had to help/teach their classmates how to do. It was really fun seeing each group become "teachers". Of course this works best in a one-to-one class where there's at least one device per group.
ReplyDelete