Watching Kids Struggle

Uphill Struggle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianturk/355291794/

Problem solving is one of those tricky things in math. Many students give up and do not appreciate the amount of effort that is needed to get to the bottom of a puzzle or problem. Today provided a great example of student struggles.

I asked the students to do a quick back to school project for me. I assigned them numbers during the class 1-34 and asked them to take a picture of them and send them to our flickr account. Pretty straight forward until I realized that I had sent the wrong email address to the kids during the class.

I changed the address in the post and then started to monitor the chatbox on the class blog. The kids were struggling and wanting answers. They were not interpreting my small answers in the chat box but finally one student got through and completed the assignment. He then took it upon himself to stick around in the chat box and help other students be successful. Other students stuck around in the chat box following his lead and helped their classmates too.

Darren always uses the word community to describe what he does with the high school math students he teaches. I am seeing after the first day of class that community is strong in this group of students. If they are willing to take risks and use each other to find answers to problems that are hard to solve hmmm...... we will have a good year.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/folkbird/148035562/

Perhaps their teacher will write down the correct email address next time or maybe he won't!!

Hey at least students are using the blog again. It is going to be a great next few months.