Monday, February 4, 2013

Student work

This week in class I helped a child complete math homework from a packet that had been turned in a while ago. The page that he needed the most help on was the fact family page. (I tried to upload the picture but my computer would not let me today) The worksheet said Use the numbers next to the ornaments and write the fact families. The sheet was filled with many ornaments and the students had to fill them with fact families. For example one ornament had the numbers 1, 3, and 4 inside the ornament the child had to write 1+3=4,  4-3=1, and 4-1=3. At first this child didn't know what a fact family was. I am assuming that is why he left the entire page blank when he turned it in. After we reviewed what a fact family was and did the first few problems together he had no trouble with this concept. In order for students to be able to complete this assignment they must already have an understanding of how to complete addition and subtraction problems. This child already understands this concept so he didn't need a lot of help after he understood the directions better.

1 comment:

  1. Your analysis should try to go more in depth into the mathematics here. For example, it is good that you identify that this task is about fact families, but what are fact families about? What big idea does that relate to (e.g., the relationship between addition and subtraction)? What are some other ways to assess a student's understanding of a fact family other than using this worksheet? What do you think is an alternate way to represent the fact family? How might a different task reveal different student understandings of this big idea?

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