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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