Tests. Students need instruction on how to take tests and how to do problems, in addition to instruction on understanding the material. If they do not know what to do, they may freeze. Fear and misunderstanding may lead to inaction.

 

When the teacher does a problem on the board, and everyone understands it, the teacher can say, “Okay, class, suppose this problem were given on the test. What should you do?”

 

Someone is likely to raise his/her hand, and say that the thing to do is the first step written on the board. This is not the way to do problems for the test! The first step is to read the problem, to understand and to write down the objectives, and then to choose what prior knowledge or techniques they learned to apply to the problem.

 

Then they should apply what they learned, starting from the beginning, working neatly. If there are too many corrections, rewrite it. At the end, look at the problem and check it. Was the work you did what was asked? Are the steps correct? Is the answer reasonable?

 

The students must understand that when presented with a problem on a test, they may not see the answer immediately. For real math problems, this will indeed be the case very often. All they need to understand is how to begin.

 

SEE THE BOOK FOR MORE DETAILS.