I have the privilege of living with several teenagers who have friends that visit often. I have said for quite a while that my teenagers are my favorite part of parenting...then I had a grand baby and that is pretty amazing as well.
I gathered my children and about six of their friends to have them do the concept/definition map acticity with me. We of course had to talk about factoring...they all know of my love for math. Most of them at some time or another have asked for help with their math homework. It's a sight to see me and a bunch of teenagers at the kitchen table all working on homework.
Anyway, we started with factoring and then explained what it is like. You know, like, perfect squares, polynomials, quadratics and using the quadratic formula. Then came the hard part...giving examples. The group came up with four examples and it was actually helpful for them with the homework they are working on right now. Factoring seems to be hard for students and I think it's because they don't remember the properties...mostly because it's not that important to them.
I felt like we had a good discussion on factoring and the teenagers asked questions about how to recognize when to factor a perfect square or how to know when to use the quadratic formula. We also then talked about other ways to factor like completing the square and a perfect square trinomial. It was a productive evening with them and they all told me they actually learned something from having the activity. I think there is always room for improvement and felt like it wasn't as hard as it can be in a large classroom. My subbing experiences have taught me that. When you have a full class and are trying to help students understand these concepts it can become tricky since the learning level of the students will vary. I think a way to improve this lesson would be to help every student, no matter how much information they have, learn about factoring.
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ReplyDeleteI wanted to do this prompt for this blog post but I didn't have a group I could work with. I also agree that teaching in small groups can be a lot easier than teaching in large groups. Sometimes students already know how to do the task at hand and are bored, while others are struggling and may not ever get it. I think it's going to take a lot of practice and learning about your students to find the best way to teach a concept.
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to try this out, and it sounds like you had a very successful experience.
ReplyDeleteI liked your comment that teens and grandbabies both have their own special kind of magic. That's our job as teachers (and human beings): to appreciate our students for who they are, and where they are. My favorite group of students was always the ones I was teaching right then. When I taught high school, they were my favorite, and when I taught middle school, they were my favorite.
Thanks for your posting.
I love that you mentioned it can and will be hard to accomodate all students because they are at different learning levels. I think it is important to know your students and where there strengths and weaknesses are. This sounded like a good learning experience for you and the group you worked with.
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