Does it ever surprise you when a student doesn’t know how to solve a problem?
Problem-solving strategies give students a mechanism for identifying elements of a problem, determining a course of action, and checking the answer. However, sometimes students don’t have a wide enough array of strategies and we can’t assume they’ll discover these on their own. Fortunately, we have videos, games and lessons to help you teach a variety of strategies.
Want it in Spanish and English? Jump to the end – we’ve got you covered.
Problem-solving two-ways lesson from Growing Math
The lesson “Problem-solving two-ways” from our teacher companion site, Growing Math, includes slide presentations, two videos and game play with the Making Camp Premium game (available for Chromebook, iOS and Android). Students are introduced to the various means of problem solving in a brief presentation. They watch a video on visualization, then solve a problem that asks them to visualize. After watching a video on building a model, students build and/or draw their own model of a multiplication problem or property. Lesson concludes with game play to reinforce these problem-solving strategies and learn more. This lesson assumes that students have some familiarity with multiplication of one-digit numbers and division with one-digit divisors.
Two ways to get more problem-solving
- Play all the videos in the Making Camp Premium game. If your school blocks YouTube, they can still play the videos within the game.
- Don’t have time for the game or enough devices? You can play all six problem-solving videos from our playlist, which is hosted on YouTube. The videos are each 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes long. I’d play one or two a session, because, personally, I find it more effective to break up lessons every 5-10 minutes. For example, I might do a slide presentation for 10 minutes, then 5 minutes of video, then 10 minutes of game play.
My favorite strategy to teach is this one, Make it an Easier Problem
What’s your favorite?
That’s nice, but I’d like it bilingual.
You’re in luck.
All of the problem-solving videos, and more math videos, are available in our YouTube playlist of math videos in Spanish.
Here is the lesson two methods – visualization and constructing a model, in Spanish and English, including slide presentations in both languages.
There is also a bilingual game, Making Camp Bilingual . If your school blocks YouTube, or if you just want students to be able to download a game and play it on a device, the videos on problem-solving strategies can also be played within the game.