Fifth grade :)
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Strategy Tool Box
From the first day of school, students begin to build their math strategies and methods for solving problems. Each operation has its own methods. Throughout the years, students are to be building upon the previous years' strategies, building a "tool box" of strategies and methods.
In fifth grade, students seem to love to stick to certain strategies, even if they're not consistently getting them to the correct outcome. I have made many attempts to try to break them of these habits and encourage them to try out some new strategies. Maybe they will work better!
The great thing about math, is if you do the steps correctly, no matter what strategy you use, the outcome is always the same. Certain problems lend themselves better to specific strategies. What I have found while teaching math is that students, so often, stick to the same, stale strategies, even if they don't work out for certain problems.
My aim is to build their mental tool boxes. This bulletin board will be built upon little by little over the course of the year. I am fighting against "out of sight, out of mind" by bringing it into the classroom in a space where students can see them while doing work.
So far, students are referring to the tool box very often!
Try it out in your classroom and comment how it worked!
~Lisa :))
In fifth grade, students seem to love to stick to certain strategies, even if they're not consistently getting them to the correct outcome. I have made many attempts to try to break them of these habits and encourage them to try out some new strategies. Maybe they will work better!
The great thing about math, is if you do the steps correctly, no matter what strategy you use, the outcome is always the same. Certain problems lend themselves better to specific strategies. What I have found while teaching math is that students, so often, stick to the same, stale strategies, even if they don't work out for certain problems.
My aim is to build their mental tool boxes. This bulletin board will be built upon little by little over the course of the year. I am fighting against "out of sight, out of mind" by bringing it into the classroom in a space where students can see them while doing work.
So far, students are referring to the tool box very often!
Try it out in your classroom and comment how it worked!
~Lisa :))
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