Jack Case 2
From TeacherWiki
Using ASSISTments to focus on written work and meet independently with students
Overview:
- In class, I observed that my students did not do their work on paper the way I wanted them to.
- I made a graphic organizer for the ASSISTment lab and had the students show their work.
- As students finished the problem on the ASSISTments, I met with them individually looking both at their work and at their score on the item report.
- I then had the students go back and try again to see if they could improve.
- When students were done or while they were waiting I had them work on other problem sets on the ASSISTments.
Contents |
Day 1
I have been working on Solving linear equations with my Purple Class and today I gave them a warm-up asking them to solve the equation 2x = 42 – 5x. A few students were able to solve for x but most of them just unwound the problem in their head or used guess and check. These are valid solution strategies, but it will not help them when the problems get more difficult. In order to solve any problem I wanted them to be able to do the traditional method of solving the problem that is show in Figure 1. I need all my students to be able to do neat orderly work for this skill. I felt like I really needed to focus on each student and make sure they all understand my expectations for how to solve an equation.
Warm up Problem
2x = 42-5x
2x + 5x = 42-5x + 5x
7x = 42
7x/7 = 42/7
x = 6
Figure 1
Day 2
In the ASSISTment lab today I started the day by giving the students a customized ASSISTment worksheet to go with the problem set Moving Straight Ahead Investigation 3. You can see the worksheet in the appendix of this case. I designed the worksheet to give them plenty of space to show their work and to make it easy for me to check what they had done. I asked them to do the problem set and show their work the way we had been doing in class.
I then asked students to come meet with me when they finished the problem set. Together we looked at the item report and at their paper where they showed their work. I then made comments on their work and showed them which ones they had gotten wrong and how, even if they got the answer correct, what I really cared about today was that they showed all their work, because that skill will help them in the future with harder problems. Most of my students did not show the work the way I had asked; you can see an example of what I did not want in Figure 2 and what I was looking for in Figure 3. I then sent them back with a new worksheet and directions to take this quiz again (I had loaded it again in the system). I was also able to point out to the students that in the hints the strategy I wanted them to use was modeled for them. Therefore, if they needed to they could get just the right help from the system.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
The students were also instructed to work on another ASSISTment problem set when they were either done with the second Moving Straight Ahead quiz or were waiting for me to conference with them on the first Moving Straight Ahead Quiz.
Conclusion
Working in the ASSISTment lab allowed me to individually look at each of my students' work. This was a skill that was very important to me and I found that many of my students were not focusing on learning it. In having them do the problem set over, it helped them really concentrate on the process, not only the outcome. They also were able to see in the hints how to work the problem out using transformations.
