Subject: Re: basic math class content
From: Marcia Tharp (tctharm@tc.cc.va.us)
Date: Fri Aug 04 2000 - 14:43:29 EDT
Tammy try these some of these.
1) Using diagnostic teaching based on student errors helps. Find common student errors in short quizzes. In the next class put a problem worked out using the common error. Ask students to tell why they think the problem is correct of incorrect. This will lead to a discussion of basic concepts that students need to understand.
2) Have your students bring in newspaper articles where they see your basic concepts used. Ask them to write a paragraph about how the concept is used in the article. For example ratios are often used in discrimination law suits, fractions may be used in artilces on cooking and food, and decimals in exchange rates for money. Attaching meaning to the numbers really helps students to personalize what they are learning.
3) Have students do group projects where they take a survey of their own in which they must show their results as fractions, decimals, and percentages. Then have them analyze their results and report them to the whole class,
4) Have students work with number patterns and a calculator to develop basic rules such as the distributive, communtative, and associative laws.
5) Have students write mini books for each other that show how to use a particular concept to solve a problem.
6) Create reviews and tests that are comprehensive. Don't segment your course like most math books.
7) Help your students to learn to be "excellent students". They may need to learn how to read a math text book and how to take notes with out writing down every thing that you say. They will also need to know how to manage their time and to ask for help and where to get it.
8) Finally, teach students basic Polya style problem solving skills such as; looking for a pattern, making a problem simpler, guessing and checking, and working the problem backwards. In this way they will be able to work at any problem even in real life with out your help.
I could go on forever, but these are a few basic ideas you may wish to consider. I teach a basic arithmetic course both in a traditional class room and on the Internet. Good Luck!
Marcia Tharp
Dr. Marcia L. Tharp
Associate Professor Mathematics
Thomas Moss Campus
Tidewater Community College
300 Granby St.
Norfolk VA 23510
757-822-1327
email: tctharm@tc.cc.va.us
webpage: tc.cc.va.us/faculty/tctharm.htm
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Mathematicians are well practiced with the sixth sense . . .
Mathematicians are artists of the imagination just as surely
as musicians, gourmets, photographers, and filmmakers are of
their respective sensory domains.
Michael Guillen-Bridges To Infinity
>>> <tforstater@harcum.edu> 08/03 12:48 PM >>>
>--What techniques have any of you used successfully to help your developmental
students learn the basic math skills? I will be teaching a course in the fall
and would like any ideas you could suggest.
Thanks.
Tammy Forstater
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