Recently I have been thinking how best to model examples to my classes. What should students be doing when I role model; just listening? What (if anything) should they be writing in their books? I need to revisit what Craig Barton and others have written on this topic. I’ve also bought ‘Teaching Math with Examples’ by Michael Pershan. I will report back.
If I can’t be clear at the moment how to deliver an example, at least I do know the difference between a good one and a bad one. One aspect is that good examples are only good if you cannot obtain the correct answer by using an incorrect method. I made some bad examples and we discussed them at a department meeting. See if you can spot why each question should be avoided.
Calculate 22
3 – 2 x 1
Simplify 16/64
Find the area of a 6cm by 3cm rectangle
Simplify a2 x a2
Write 2 and 3/10 as an improper fraction
It was fun to think of such bad examples. With classes who are confident of the concept at hand, this type of questions could be a good discussion point. If you have any bad examples I’d love to add more to my collection.
Geomaths 