stephanie Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 Ds14 takes alg 1 at our local private school and is on a block schedule. To prepare for his chapter test we went online to the books website, printed out each lesson quizz as well as the chapter test (not the one that will be used). Ds and I went through everything as well as watching lesson videos. It was almost overkill if ykwim. He understood the materiAl (so he said), and he thought he did great on his test. WELL, he got it back today and he made a 58! 😠The mistakes he made were so ridiculous, very careless. So ds corrected it, all by himself, and he gets everyone right? 😠What do I do with that? He said he didnt know why he did so poorly because he knew how to do it. What other approaches could I try for him? I'm thinking part of the problem is that he really has to be careful to not make careless mistakes because at home he would make them, but never have to do more than correct it. So maybe he needs to get used to testing in a different style? Sigh.... I feel like I've failed in some way? It's a direct reflection of my teaching him and we work so hard at it. I hope someone can give me a word of wisdom on this. I do expect him to improve, but I want to make sure I'm doing as much as I can.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jann in TX Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 Most of the 'careless' mistakes made in Algebra 1 have nothing to do with mathematical thinking/processes. It is the part of the brain that does 'speed reading'. It is similar to what young children go through when they are learning to read-- they skip the middle sound so 'CAT' would be CT and their brains try to fill in the middle that they did not really read-- most will say "cut, cit, cot or cet' before they say 'cat'... most of those kids will know the sound a short a makes... their brain did not process (read) the middle letter! Same thing happens in Algebra. The good news is that MOST students will adapt and learn how to slow their brains down so they can reduce (probably not eliminate) these types of mistakes. 2(3)= 5 This has to be the most common mistake I see as a high school math teacher. For the vast majority of the student's life a 2 followed by a 3 was a 5! In some of my classes this error type accounts for over 90% of all errors! I try to work with my students in building strategies to slow their thinking down a bit-- it sounds like your son may have been anxious about the test. Teach him how to go back and check to see how logical his answers are-- or if the problem was an equation-- to plug in his answer to check it. Using colored pencils to overwrite negatives is one way to slow the student down-- when I'm combining like terms I will often circle the like terms (one type at at time making sure to capture any negative signs too)... Also work on calming strategies to reduce test anxiety and improve focus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephanie Posted September 11, 2013 Author Share Posted September 11, 2013 Most of the 'careless' mistakes made in Algebra 1 have nothing to do with mathematical thinking/processes. It is the part of the brain that does 'speed reading'. It is similar to what young children go through when they are learning to read-- they skip the middle sound so 'CAT' would be CT and their brains try to fill in the middle that they did not really read-- most will say "cut, cit, cot or cet' before they say 'cat'... most of those kids will know the sound a short a makes... their brain did not process (read) the middle letter! Same thing happens in Algebra. The good news is that MOST students will adapt and learn how to slow their brains down so they can reduce (probably not eliminate) these types of mistakes. 2(3)= 5 This has to be the most common mistake I see as a high school math teacher. For the vast majority of the student's life a 2 followed by a 3 was a 5! In some of my classes this error type accounts for over 90% of all errors! I try to work with my students in building strategies to slow their thinking down a bit-- it sounds like your son may have been anxious about the test. Teach him how to go back and check to see how logical his answers are-- or if the problem was an equation-- to plug in his answer to check it. Using colored pencils to overwrite negatives is one way to slow the student down-- when I'm combining like terms I will often circle the like terms (one type at at time making sure to capture any negative signs too)... Also work on calming strategies to reduce test anxiety and improve focus. Thank you, Jan. I know he was anxious about the test because he had to make it up and was only person in the class with hs teacher. He was already stressed about that. But he made the mistake of (3-1)=4.😕 Also he saw 18 in2, and squared 18 instead if seeing it as just the unit of measurement...just silly mistakes. His teacher was very supportive and felt he just needed to get used to being more careful, but it still disappointed me. Do you have any other specific suggestions for helping him to slow down and decreasing his anxiety? I would love to hear what you use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 One of the things I do is provide practice quizzes for my students. The idea is that they take the quiz just like they'd take the test, then see what type of problems they made errors on. I'd suggest that when printing the quiz and practice tests, have your son take it just like he'd take the actual test - no book, no notes, timed. Then he should review the type of problems he gets wrong - after monitoring why he got them wrong. Work similar problems, watch the videos for those topics, then try again with another practice test or quiz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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