Re: Setting up problems

[AGraham <grahamaj@APPSTATE.EDU>]

Promod Pratap wrote:

> Is there some way to teach students how to read a word problem and then
> set it up so that they can then apply the math to it?  I don't remember
> how I learned this, but I (and all my colleagues) seem to be rather good
> at this.

I had 3 years of high school algebra from a very experienced teacher who
retired at the end of my senior year.  He was supposed to teach set theory
our third year (for college prep).  He refused, and spent the whole year
working on word problems.  He required us to begin our solution of a problem
by listing the known quantities (or "givens" as he called them), and then
the unknowns (or things we were asked to find).  Failure to do this earned a
zero for that problem, even if we had the correct solution.  I believe this
method is very effective in teaching students to structure their approach to
solving any problem.

andy graham