Home

Services

Math and Instruction

About

self-help skills

  • College Preparation and Retests

    College Preparation and Retests

    In a recent Facebook group for high school math teachers, an interesting discussion arose about retests and how to respond to students who have a low score on a given test. A common perspective that I shared for a time is that we should eschew retests as we are preparing students for college. In this…

  • College Preparation and Retests

    College Preparation and Retests

    In a recent Facebook group for high school math teachers, an interesting discussion arose about retests and how to respond to students who have a low score on a given test. A common perspective that I shared for a time is that we should eschew retests as we are preparing students for college. In this…

  • Perseverance in Math

    A major challenge for students is not content but how to “do math” which includes perseverance. The photo above shows a table that can be used to monitor progress on perseverance. It addresses two situations involving perseverance (see below). The focus of perseverance in math is making an informed attempt when a path or next step is unclear…

  • Self-Help Skills Video Presentation

    See the video (link below) to find out about this photo.I believe one of the greatest problems in education is the challenge students have in taking an active role in the learning process. This is a video of a presentation on issues related to academic self-help skills and how to develop them. This is especially…

  • Scaffolding Multi-step Math Problems

    This is the figure from Mrs. Olsen’s Sidewalk Problem from the CT CAPT test 2010 (released to public). The problem has four major steps: divide the figure into common shapes, use Pythagorean Theorem to find height of the resulting triangles, find area of these shapes and compute total cost for  pouring the asphalt for the…

  • Conceptual Understanding

    I gave a student a pop quiz on percent change – find discount and tax – after she completed  independent practice on this objective. The student followed the steps very well, as you can see in the photo (I added the ink later) up to the very end. At that point she added the tax…

  • Middle school to college

    This is a photo of a table I created for a former 7th grade student of mine. It laid out his academic future leading up to college. The arrows were a visual part of my explanation of how college applications are largely based on the 9th, 10th and 11th grade high school years. This is…

  • Lone Ranger vs Self-Help

    In leadership class I studied the Lone Ranger approach to problem-solving. When a problem arose in an organization the boss would ride in and solve the problem. Afterwards he or she would ride off and the employees would be no better prepared for the next crisis or problem. The point of the analogy is empowerment…

  • Post-Secondary Outcomes as Accountability Measure

    Unprepared College Freshmen Could Be The Cost Of High Schools Huffington Post Education has a story about states considering action to hold school districts accountable for their graduates having to take remedial courses upon entering college. Of course there are many factors that affect a student’s performance in college but high schools can do more…

  • Addressing Homework Completion Problems

    Addressing Homework Completion Problems Nice article Dr. Gary Brannigan (@GaryBrannigan) with 9 suggestions for helping a student with homework completion problems. #3 is especially pertinent to math: Initially assign homework with which the struggling learner is unlikely to have difficulty. Mark the homework for punctual submission and content. Gradually increase difficulty but never beyond the…