"Yesterday I made 10 cookies. Mr. Wilson ate 3 cookies. How many cookies left?"
After calling on students, Mrs. Wilson walked the students through writing this problem in 'short form' as she called it, or "10-3+__"
Following, Mrs. Wilson called on students to make-up story problems that they could work through as a class. The photo below is an example of a student's work/made-up story problem. The goal of this was to ensure students knew the difference between addition (or put-together problems) and subtraction (or take-away problems).
One student said, "Outside I saw 3 birds and 1 nest. How many things did I see?", so Mrs. Wilson wrote this story problem on the white board (shown above). The student was then asked if they created an addition or subtraction problem, and then was asked to explain how they knew (or what the 'hints' were) to determining the type of problem they created.
Having students create these problems was great, because they were engaged and felt involved. When solving the these problems, the students would come up to the white board and move the yellow and red round magnets to represent the problem. This is great for visual learners that cannot do the addition in their head yet. Others that do not need the visuals could write the problem as "3+1=4". Both of these demonstrations are great represntations of the story problem written.
I anticipate that students could count on their fingers or use counter items, such as the yellow and red magnets on the white board. Student may also draw pictures.
The student created this problem, then stepped back and thought about exactly what they said. She first noted that the first number was '3', so she told Mrs. Wilson to write the number 3 on the board. Then the student noticed that the next number was 1, and asked Mrs. Wilson to write that number next. The student did not determine that the story was an addition problem until they re-read the last sentence of the problem, which asked for the total amount of items seen outside. After determining this, she told Mrs. Wilson to write a plus sign between the two numbers.
The student indeed realizes how to create addition problems, but I am unsure if she knows how to create subtraction problems. I would like to see what sort of problem she could create if asked to write a subtraction problem. I also can determine that she clearly knows that addition includes putting two groups of things together, seeing that birds and nests are different items.
To advance her knowledge, I would ask the student to create another problem, write the numbers herself and draw/use counters without assistance. In addition, I might ask her to create a subtraction problem since she only created an addition problem.
Nicole, sorry that I missed commenting on this post last night! I gave you credit for it in my gradebook, but skipped over it for some reason when I was giving comments. Sorry about that and thanks for pointing it out to me.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great example of student work and a really great analysis. You are very thorough in terms of your discussion of the mathematics as it relates to the type of problem and the student's strategy.
ReplyDeleteIn thinking about future problems, think about how you might word the problem, or how students might word the problem, and how this might change the way that students approach the problem. I am thinking specifically of the examples from the CGI book (how asking the problems in different ways leads to different student strategies).