Math Notations
There are Twice as many girls as boys: 2G=B or G=2B?
03/25/2009
I got a reply back on the blog. His comments talked about additional verbal problems and phrases that students often mess up like "the difference of M and N" and "M is less than N". He also have me a good idea of some other phrases to watch out for involving division, factoring and mulitples. An example of a division phrase students often mess up is "the ratio of M to N". The phrasing is very important in subtraction and division because they are not commutative. Even though I realized this it reminded me that the order you put the numbers in addition and multiplication phrases does not matter. Since students may have always got the right answer by putting the numbers in any order in addition and mulitplication phrases it may have led them to believe that they can do the same for division and subtraction phrases. The responder also gave me a useful mnemonic for my students to remember the ordering in the phrases of multiple and factor.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Blog Journal Entry 2
New Teachers Times
03/21/2009
Today I started a new blog called New Teachers Times. I have been having trouble finding recent blogs that are discussing issues that I am interested in and decided it might be useful to try to create a blog for new teachers to discuss anything. I've tried to make all St. John's fellows aware and hope they will get involved. The first posting I made was about regents exams asking how everyone is planning on preparing for the exam. Hopefully I get some good pointers and advice! We'll see. I also mentioned that I plan on using jmap.org which provides past regents problems and categorizes them in many useful ways such as by textbook chapter and section (Pearson Prentice Hall or Amsco). It also has all the exams in useful formats and has many, many other useful resources.
03/21/2009
Today I started a new blog called New Teachers Times. I have been having trouble finding recent blogs that are discussing issues that I am interested in and decided it might be useful to try to create a blog for new teachers to discuss anything. I've tried to make all St. John's fellows aware and hope they will get involved. The first posting I made was about regents exams asking how everyone is planning on preparing for the exam. Hopefully I get some good pointers and advice! We'll see. I also mentioned that I plan on using jmap.org which provides past regents problems and categorizes them in many useful ways such as by textbook chapter and section (Pearson Prentice Hall or Amsco). It also has all the exams in useful formats and has many, many other useful resources.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Blog Journal Entry 1
Math Notations
There are Twice as many girls as boys: 2G=B or G=2B?
03/21/2009
Blog involves math investigations, math challenges, problems of the day, standardized test practice, developing conceptual understanding in mathematics, issues in mathematics education with a focus on standards, assessment, and pedagogy primarily at the 7-12 level through AP Calculus.
The topic of this discussion was on translating words into math. For example, "there are twice as many girls as boys: 2G = B or G = 2B?".
This blog was a discussion about some of the expressions that students find difficult translating from words to math. There was some pointers on what works with some problems such as ratios and the importance of covering this sort of thought as a part of the standards. I agreed with the poster and thanked him for the original question he posted which I plan to use in my class during regents review. I also let everyone know of another translation that my students have diffuculty with, an example of which is "seven less than ten". 90% of my students want to put down 7-10 when it really should be 10-7. They find this one difficult because it has to be worked out backwards when most words can be written into expressions in the order from beginnning to end (assuming the students already know the vocabulary like "more than" is plus, etc.)
There are Twice as many girls as boys: 2G=B or G=2B?
03/21/2009
Blog involves math investigations, math challenges, problems of the day, standardized test practice, developing conceptual understanding in mathematics, issues in mathematics education with a focus on standards, assessment, and pedagogy primarily at the 7-12 level through AP Calculus.
The topic of this discussion was on translating words into math. For example, "there are twice as many girls as boys: 2G = B or G = 2B?".
This blog was a discussion about some of the expressions that students find difficult translating from words to math. There was some pointers on what works with some problems such as ratios and the importance of covering this sort of thought as a part of the standards. I agreed with the poster and thanked him for the original question he posted which I plan to use in my class during regents review. I also let everyone know of another translation that my students have diffuculty with, an example of which is "seven less than ten". 90% of my students want to put down 7-10 when it really should be 10-7. They find this one difficult because it has to be worked out backwards when most words can be written into expressions in the order from beginnning to end (assuming the students already know the vocabulary like "more than" is plus, etc.)
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