Every teacher has her favorite review game. I like Jeopardy even though it's a lot of work to put together. My pal Mike W loves Trash Can Basketball. As a matter of fact, the Algebra teachers in our department recently decided to pool their resources and each create review games for a couple of chapters. Games are fun. However, if the students aren't solid with the material then the game goes stale.
This is what compelled me to think about what I could do to help my students get the most out of review. As I did, I realized something. I've been doing this teaching thing a little backwards. Instead of trying to put geometry into the student I need to put the student into geometry. That is, I need to create activities that will teach my young men and women to be better students as they review for exams.
Thus, a series is born. Beginning Monday I will write a series of posts describing the ideas that I came up with. The post titles are listed below. In the meantime, I would love to hear about any ideas that you may have (so I can steal them, of course). Enjoy!
- Monday - Problem Predictions
- Tuesday - Expert Study Teams
- Wednesday - Problem Trees: A Graphic Organizer
- Thursday - Round Tables
- Friday - Ideas From Other Really Cool Professionals
Posts
2 comments:
It's not "fun" like a game but....We have a policy of finals counting between 25%-35% of their grade so I have been requiring 3x5 cards for all of my classes (including Algebra 1 speaking of experiments). In Algebra 1 I'm going to have to train them how to make them and how to use them...I'll see how that goes; with the older kids (Trig/AP it has worked well to check a couple of days before a test for a hw score "study pts" to be sure they are made but I encourage them to experiment and find what works for them...students with A's on the last test may be excused - I've done that before to cut down on whining - but this year I may stick to my guns since finals count so heavily on grades.
Tracy, thanks! Any tips on how to train students to make the cards?
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