Progress on Inquiry

I have used the rubric idea on a few assessments now and it seems like the students that use them do a lot better than those that don't. I think that having clear expectations that show what is important has given some students that have been lost in the past a better understanding of what they have to do to problem solve. So many students have a hard time because they get stuck at the beginning and can't break a problem down. By breaking the problem down and emphasizing writing an equation for the parts, they have been doing a lot better than classes in years past.

I think I am going to continue to use the rubric idea because not only does it give students clear expectations, but it also makes grading their assessments a lot easier for me and cuts down on inconsistency in grading. I think that for everyday assignments I can embed the rubric criteria into directions so that students will know at the beginning, middle and end of a unit what they are expected to do when completely any problems.

My current unit is on polynomials which contains one of the dreaded F-words in math: FACTORING (the others being fractions and foiling). I think that giving students specific guidelines for factoring will take some of the pressure off of remembering what to do, so they can focus on figuring out the puzzles pieces. If you remember factoring you should know what I mean by a puzzle. Hopefully by using this idea, my students won't continue to loathe factoring.