Assignment #3: Writing to Learn Math, Matthew Hallahan

The book I read was Writing to Learn Math, by Joan Countryman. The basic gist of the book is that students learn by exploring, discussing, and predicting. In short, by being active. So this passive learning of skills and processes (that math teachers are often guilty of) is not adequate and is not preparing our students for interacting with their world, or with the larger world.

So, one of the ways we can encourage active participation and real thought in our math classrooms (sorry non-math teachers) is to have our students write. It is important to practice writing simply for its own sake, because communicating ideas clearly and persuassively is such an important skill. But also because writing can be a stimulus for deeper thought. I think we've all had that experience were as soon as we start writing, the creative juices start flowing and we find ourselves roaming down paths that we hadn't thought of at first. Writing is like a catalyst.

Here are a few ideas that I thought were helpful, and would be beneficial in a math class.

The author states that students are often receptive to short writing assignments. She suggests learning logs, where students record examples and explanations about how they did a problem. (this is an idea I keep meaning to implement but never do!) She also suggests short writing prompts such as: I think calculators...., factoring is easy when....., or teachers usually say....

She also suggests journals. Students can record anything they want. How the day went. Troubles they had during class. How they were feeling. These can be helpful to understand how your students approach the subject matter. One idea I really liked is that the teacher keep their own journal about the class. For example, "Today's lesson didn't go as well as I had planned. A few students struggled because I think I breezed through the review of the ratios in the beginning of class. Tomorrow I will review ratios in more detail, and hopefully things will go more smoothly" Then the teacher should share their journal entries with the students. It will show them the importance of keeping one and how it can help your learning, and there is the added encouragement that adult people actually do this, its not some time sucking task that is given to kids to bore them. It was also suggested to add a table of contents, opening, and closing to give the journal a more official feel.

The last topic I want to discuss is how to handle word problems. It can be a very useful assignment to just have the students work on one (only one!) word problem in a day. If its an open ended question, that requires lots of thought and no definite answer, it can be a great opportunity to have the students explore it through writing. Make this on problem a project. Have them write a report on it. Discuss how they approached finding a solution. Discuss the various solutions they found and under what conditions they hold true. Have them include charts, graphs, diagrams. This is all good math, and just because only one problem is being tackled does not mean its a waste of time.

So thats all.
love,
matt