More Good Questions has really gotten me to start thinking about the questions I ask my students. Its so easy to stay with the traditional skill/drill I grew up on – but I am encouraged by some things my students are coming up with when given the opportunity of an open question.
Yes, a few of them are still struggling with “where to start” but now they are at least giving me something – whereas the first couple of attempts – blank stares, blank papers, blank looks.
Today, students were given the opportunity to retake their pre-test to look for any areas they may not have mastered yet. As a review, I placed a graph of a line on the board. I asked, “What can you tell me about this line? How many different ways can you write/describe this line?”
I will add my slides from their discussion tomorrow. If you can picture a line through (0, 2) and (5, 0).
Timer set. Go.
Here are some of their responses.
- Its a linear function.
- Its decreasing.
- Slope from the graph is -2/5.
- It will never be in the 3rd quadrant. (ok, didn’t expect that one).
- It has intercepts at (0, 2) & (5, 0).
- y=-2/5x+2
- 2x+5y=10
- y-4=-2/5(x+5) which led to a student stating, “I wrote point-slope for too, but its not the same as ___.” Discussion.
- A table of values was given with intercepts as well as (-10, 6) (-5, 4) (10, -2).
- Another verified the rate of change with the table of values.
- The inverse is y=-5/2x+5 (nice surprise)
- A line parallel is y = -2/5x + 4
- A line perpendicular is y = 5/2x+2
- It could model a budget of $10, Candy(x) is $2, Coffee(y) is $5…how many of each can I purchase and spend exactly $10?
Many students were able to be part of the sharing/discussion. I felt it was a great review of topics – with one simple graph of a line as the starting point…I attempted to follow #sbarbooks suggestion to look for students with fewer things on their list and call on them first to allow for their participation.
I hope to continue to gather ideas from More Good Questions that I can easily incorporate into my classroom. I am looking forward to a book study with my department as well and seeing where it leads our students.
I highly recommend this book by Marian Small if you do not have – its worth the purchase!
the radical rational... 