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Making Sense of Sense Making in Mathematics
First off, I want to thank Annie Fetter for challenging me and a bunch of other people to dig deeper almost a year ago. In an attempt to do the same for you as Annie did for me, I’m going to ask you to solve a simple math question for me. After you solve it, […]
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How I Think About Correct Answers In Math (Hint: It isn’t as simple as we like to think)
What does it mean when a student gets a correct answer in math? Are they all set, do they know the material? Does it matter how they got that answer? This post will quickly explore those questions with all the great information we gather at Math ANEX. The answer isn’t as simple as we’d hope, […]
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An Asset-Based Perspective on Student’s Written Linear Equations
At some point, student’s have to start writing equations. This is just a quick look into how we think about student’s written equations to figure out how they are thinking and what we can do to help. First, it may be useful for you to look at the differences between a multiple choice and non-multiple […]
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Multiple Choice vs. Free Response
When we give an assessment, it is our mission to understand the student who takes it as best we can. Multiple choice tests usually look to understand student performance, but we want to know how students think. We did an experiment where we had the same students take the same question 3 years in a […]
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Helping Students To Understand Why X⁰ Equals 1, And The Theory Of Invisible Ones.
There is a lot in the topic of exponential variables, but today we are going to focus x⁰ and how students think about it. This last week, we gave 400 some students the following question. And I’m sure many of you could guess their answers. We’ve got the correct answer of 1 at 59%, 0 […]
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How Students Think About Function Notation and How To Help Them Grow
In the last couple weeks, we were able to explore a little bit about how students think about function notation. We looked at 4 different questions to understand how they were thinking. Using a graph, can you solve f(x) given an x value, given the value of f(x)? How about using a table? And finally, […]
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An Analysis of How Students Think About Graphs and Patterns
We have the incredibly fortunate opportunity to be working with a group of 7 amazing Integrated Math 1 teachers this school year. These teachers, to no surprise, care deeply about helping their students improve and they’re open to finding brand new ways to do so. They’re allowing us to try out weekly asset-based classwork assignments. […]
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How Assessments Can Be Used To Empower Teachers
“Hands down, the best thing I’ve seen in years.” – Susan Preston, 4th Grade Teacher And that was about an assessment! … Yes, you read that correctly, that quote was about an assessment! You know, the things that most of us working in the education system constantly bemoan. For decades now, traditional assessments haven’t been […]
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How I think about incorrect answers in math.
Whether or not you were a “math kid” growing up, you likely got a wrong answer at one point. While some students are able to see that they simply made a mistake or didn’t understand one piece of the puzzle, other students see it as further reinforcement that they are just “bad at math”. And […]