Ida Case 4
From TeacherWiki
Overview
- Students complete a problem set on the computer
- Study the Item report from the Problem set to find one problem to deal with
- Discuss the problem in class
Day 1
Today in the lab my students were practicing 8th grade MCAS problems. I chose a problem set that corresponded with the unit we had just finished. It was nice to know that while they were practicing they were all getting help from the system when they needed it. When they had all finished the problem set I printed out the item report and looked for something interesting to bring up in class. I can never cover everything in the item report but I do like to go over something the next day so the students know I am paying attention to their work and see the connection between class and the ASSISTment lab. Many times I look for the problem with the lowest number of correct answer but this time something else caught my eye. You can see the problem in Figure 1.
| ASSISTment #836 |
|---|
| Which is closest to 0.816*0.211? |
| A. 0.16 |
| B. 1.6 |
| C. 16 |
| D. 160 |
Now my students did well on this problem, 72% got it correct and the rest of the students selected 1.6 instead of 0.16. However we had been discussing estimation a lot in my class and I know I had a lot of reluctant estimators. This was a class of kids who liked to work it all out and find the exact answer. Since I had just stopped using the ASSISTment worksheets I wanted to see if I could analyze my students’ work. It turned out everyone had done a great job organizing their work and I could easily find their work for ASSISTment #836.
You can see the results of the 18 students in my class who did this problem in Figure 2.
| 7 students got the problem correct and used estimation |
| 6 students got the problem correct and worked it all out |
| 5 student selected the incorrect answer of 1.6 |
I know a discussion of using estimation for this problem would help 11 of my students. However I did not have a lot of time to devote to this topic in class. So I decided to make an overhead of their work and share it with them in class that week. You can see what I showed them and the questions I asked in Figure 3.
Conclusion
I really like bringing in the data I find on the ASSISTments to the students. In this exchange I was able to respond to the work my students did on their paper. This helps them know that I value tidy work. In addressing this problem I wanted to emphasize that I am not just looking for the right answer but I also want them to think mathematically in order to make the right choices.
Day 1. Gave MCAS practice
Day 2. Responded quickly in class to something I saw in the item report and on their work.
