March 21. 2012

Danny's mother made cookies for his party.  She made 36 cookies, The girls ate 1/4 of them.  The boys ate 1/3 of them.  If the 10 parents at the party shared the rest equally, how many cookies did each parent get?

With this Valentine's Day dance problem, the most important piece of information in this problem that can help you get the right answer is the fact there are only 3 rectangular table that will hold 8 people at each table.

My strategy for this problem was to move the names around as I read the problem the second time.  Can you think of other strategies to solve this problem?  Using manipulatives that represent the different teams, using a continuum line, write a list.

How many other combinations of bracelets can Tiffany purchase without going over $20?

Strategy for this problem:  put the smallest numbers in the corners.

Strategy for this problem:  guess and check.  Figure out what the numbers could be for the rectangle and see if they would work for the square.

March 15, 2012

Problem Solving Practices
(Best way to teach these?  Post them where your students do their work and always point out what students are doing these practices)

• Get students to contextualize (put the numbers and put them in real world problems) and decontextualize (to remove from a context)
• Have students construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
• Model with mathematics
• students can use concrete models, pictures, real-world situations, oral language and symbols
• Use appropriate tools strategically
• It's not always appropriate to use a calculator
• Attend to precision
• students are being precise in their math.   Ex. using vocabulary correctly, labeling their units..
• Look for and make use of structure
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

What is the value of having students learn through problem solving?

• Problem solving is very engaging

Problem Solving Checklist

• Understand the question
• what are you being asked to do?
• What is important/not important
• Choose a plan
• What are you going to try to solve this problem?
• Try your plan
• Execute your plan
• Check your answer
• is it resonable, does it make sense?
• Reflect on what you've done
• whether or not your plan worked, reflect on what happened.  Why did it or didn't it work?  What when right or what went wrong?

What strategies could you use to solve the problem above?

• Draw pictures
• Guess and check
• Corey and Tommy are at a 6:2 ratio
• You could make a table
• You could write a system of equations (if you know how to do this)

Copy of a Parent Letter that you can send home.
 Tips on helping their student with problem solving.

1.  How many packets do we need?  How many feet is the border?

Below is my solution

Problem Solving Strategy Icons

 Problem solving Recording Sheet.

How to teach contextual clues and not just keywords

• Don't teach problem solving as a separate thing, it should be integrated
• Teach them how to identify key words that are commonly associated with mathematical operations.
• Teach students how to think aloud
• Teach students how to get to the bottom of the problem
• Teach students how to draw a picture
• Teach students how to create a table with the information provided
• Teach students how to identify the important/not important information/missing information
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