Algebra effort
I am seeing more and more that there is a growing seperation of the number of students that are working hard and not working hard. It seems that there are students who are prefectly okay with not understanding what they are doing and spend a lot of time at night writing stuff down on paper to have the illusion that they understand. What can I do for a student that does not want to put an effort into learning math? Most of these students are in Algebra 1 where they are building a foundation for all their future math classes. I guess this is start of the year frustration and I am hoping that I can change some habits that they have devoloped in the past. Have these tricks worked in the past to get these students by?
posted by James H @ 11:47 AM
1 Comments:
Is this one of the classes that used the "How is math important?" survey? I thought that was a great idea, but it might have been for your upper level classes.
In a subject like math, where the buy-in is not automatic for many students, I wonder if your students' work ethic will improve throughout the semester because they're working for YOU. I know that the best motivation is self-motivation, but this is not always the case--especially when it comes to 9th and 10th graders. Perhaps their buy-in, at least at the beginning, has to be extrinsic (they see that it makes you happy, they get a weekend off if every single person turns in the homework, etc.). Then, once they realize how it feels to be successful in Algebra, the motivation might grow more intrinsic.
Or, you can make them run stairs each time someone neglects an assignment.
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