Skip to main content

More on Exit Slips...by Mary Langmyer

I try to use reflection in math class, especially with problems that are challenging or complex.  Here are some questions to ask:
Cognitive Skills type (questions or stems)
What is priority #1 in this problem?
Which symbol do you want to ask about?
My first step will be to ...
How many steps will there be for completion of this problem?
This problem LOOKS difficult because...
Write a question about this problem for the teacher, or a partner, or the author...
Affective  type
Which problem did you enjoy more?  
If you were offered a "life-line" for one problem, which would you choose and why?
Which did you like better: the problem with fractions or the problem with square roots? Why?
If your partner was stuck, what could you do or say to help them?
Were you and your partner successful on the problems?  What did you do together that enabled you to be successful?
What did you feel was the most difficult part of this problem?  Does your partner agree/disagree?  Why?
Do you like to work as part of a group in problems like this?  Was your partner helpful?
 Additional 
Draw a diagram to represent the solving of this problem...
What is your answer was 3.215693......?  Does it make sense for this equation?
Complete:  This problem reminds me of (or is like)...
How would a mathematician have written the solution?  How would a chef have written the solution?  Would it be different?  Why?

Can you create your own problem and have your partner (or me) solve it?
Is there another problem that has this same answer?  Can you create one?

These questions are sometimes placed at the end of practice problems, or at the end of a test/quiz.  The question and response is a conversation between the student and myself.  I can make an additional comment and return the conversation to the student.
Students use vocabulary, goal setting skills, prioritizing, creativity, and they realize that I respect and value their perceptions of the challenging material.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Learning with Significance

What is Learning of Significance? By helping students to make their own connections and understandings, these awesome teachers of significance have helped students to find meanings that will resonate with them. How to do it? connect with real issues right-size the learning task (and then make it even more challenging) problematize texts use multimodal prompts and texts show students how experts make meaning What does it look like? English -- a student researchers the war in Afghanistan with a partner and presents his findings about the Soviet invasion, the Taliban, and the U.S. involvement following 9/11.   These same students connect this powerful new knowledge to The Kite Runner .  In turn, the complex events leading up to and following 9/11 help focus the reading of the novel and vice versa ; as meanings become connected, webs of understanding reinforce significant knowledge. Science -- a teacher challenges his students to read a textbook excerpt describing...

Classroom Controversy

Constructive Controversy     I want to draw my students into a supportive classroom environment that normalizes struggle and controversy. Argument does not have to be a winner-take-call debate or (on the other extreme) a series of head nods to a commonly agreed-upon platitude.  Democracy takes  more work than that.  The empathy and rationality of rich humanism requires greater depth and search, as well.   Even after 21 years of teaching, I am still learning so much about how to set the stage for respectful and engaged discussion.  What about you? Praise, Pressure, and Performance This short unit focuses on setting the norms of inquiry and engagement that will lead to constructive controversy.  Please check out any of the lessons, or the whole unit!  I taught this in the 2013-14 school year in grade 9, but it could easily run in grades 8-11.   This topic is so compelling, I think, because it will help students...

Blended Learning ELA White Paper Musings/Draft

Vision of Blended Learning ELA -- White Paper This vision concerns how implement Blended Learning in the High School setting, in an ELA department in particular.   What is Blended Learning?  In a secondary school ELA department, we see the opportunity to focus our work on three modes of interaction, each with several variations ( image link/credit ).  The result, we feel, will be a constructivist learning space, in which teachers and students address literary texts, literacy skills, and real-world problems in a problem-based learning format. The primary educational mode is still face-to-face interaction, even in a blended classroom.  Nothing seems to be quite able to substitute for the caring, insightful, focused presence of a teacher or coach, on hand and engaged with the learner in the content or skill being learned.  In ELA, a discussion of social class in The Great Gatsby benefits greatly from seeing the reactions on classmates' or the teacher's face w...