Our students are reviewing math strategies for adding multidigit numbers. There are guaranteed to be 18 strategies for finding a solution when there are 18 whiteboards and brains working. The hard work for them isn't getting the answer, but sharing their process; the HOW they did it. The photos show a couple of students working on partial sums to find the answer. Students weren't given anything but the problem in horizontal format. There were no strategies prescribed for solving. Students just went to it. We have worked this year on how mathematicians and scientists and other inventors have to know how to express/share their findings or the world will never get to use their great strategy, proof, invention, product. In our class, metacognition of their processes has been developed since the beginning of school. Hopefully this awareness will be something that will help them pull out a strategy as needed and eventually they will see how those strategies will help solve more complicated problems. More often than not, having been a kid who grew up memorizing algorithms to solve, watching students show their thinking gets me to open up a new avenue of thought about a problem. Love that!
1 comment:
This is great. I wish I'd had instructors who had taken time to help me 'get into' math when I was a kid. I learned it, sure, but I never really got it until I started teaching.
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