EDEL-433 Melissa's Blog

Today, we discussed in class how teachers always want to rescue kids that are struggling with with word problems. We talked about how teachers should allow students the time to figure it out on their own, using their own strategy, but not to the point beyond frustration. In one of the videos Dr. Shih talked about a student took about 25 minutes to figure out a problem. In response to the video, most of the teachers stressed they didn't have that time to give to students. In my practicum, my mentor teacher actually has a learning center that consists of solving one word problem. The students have 15 minutes to do this being that this is the allotted time per station. She does not show them, tell, or expect them to do it her way. They are free to solve it however they want. The only thing I didn't see and wouldn't mind adding to this station is block manipulatives or other mathematical manipulatives for the students to use however they wish.