My budding love of teaching, stemming from my larger love of math and learning

Monday, December 5, 2011

Preparing for Tests

Recently, I have been really trying to stress "STUDY" and what it really means. In math it doesn't just mean, "oh I'm going to look through my notes", and it doesn't start the night before the test. But my kids don't get it. And I am not sure that I figured it out in math until grad school. But I am trying to communicate what I know now and had wish I had known then...
I have started giving out a "preparing for tests" review sheet about a week before the exam (hoping that next year I can be organized enough to give it at the start of the chapter, but I don't always know if I am going to use the Mid Chapter Quiz or Practice Test as take home items). 

Last test, I know that at least 1 student used it because I got an email from a parent when she didn't do so hot on her test saying she studied and even used the review sheet. 

But freshmen and sophomores don't really know how to study and freshmen don't even understand the idea of a cumulative final. 

This needs work, but I think it is a good start.

2 comments:

  1. I agree that students have a really hard time studying for Math tests. One thing that I stole from another teacher this year that has been kind of nice is using a target sheet: http://www.scribd.com/doc/95230381/Ch-9-Targets where instead of just listing each topic/skill, there's an example or two and students rate themselves based on how well they understand that topic. This hopefully gives them a baseline to "know what they don't know" and narrows down their studying to the areas where it is needed. The idea is that you progress from the teacher making the entire target sheet to the students contributing more and more until eventually, it's all student-generated.

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  2. Oooh I really like that!!!
    Thanks!

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