2024-09-25 - Your further thoughts on word problems in your own teaching

 2024-09-25 - Your further thoughts on word problems in your own teaching

Knowing what you do now about word problems and their history, how would you (and how wouldn't you) use them in your own math teaching?

·       I have been debating this since last year, most students get to attend school in a large urban centre. This allows a high level of support from peers and educators. The students who do not have that level of support would need to be given every path the succeed. Also, diverse learners needing to be given information in a different way would/should and need to be accommodated.

 One way in an instance of a word problem, I would use an existing word problem discuss with all students and then reword as necessary. Then I would have students randomly pair up where possible and each student shares their interpretation of the word problem and then this would promote questions for deeper understanding of word problems.

 As time progresses with the students. Ideally increased understanding of word problems for the course has improved and less time is spent on the wording of the problem. [an example in a simple form is change the words of the problem to relevant to the students current view of their world and interests.]

 

Are there interesting, engaging and helpful ways to connect with the 4,500 year continuous history of these very strange problems -- without just throwing them away?

·       I would YES! History is very important and a very good exercise to promote the learning of history is the modern transformation of the word problem specifically connecting it to the ease of use in the Hindu-Arabic numbering system 0-9 compared to what was used in an era. Also, the language used and who the audience/student was for the word problem History shows not all people were able and or allowed to attend schools, and it is a very interesting point to contemplate in history of various cultures and eras.

TsáKtalay’pa