My short-term elementary algebra class is drawing to a close. For the midterm I tried a new exam strategy that I really liked. I teach a 2-hour block that meets 4 days a week. On a Tuesday students spent the first hour working on problems from Chapters 1 and 2, and we went over the solutions during the second hour. On the next day we repeated the pattern for Chapters 3 & 4. On the Thursday students were given instant…
Last week I made a post about using quizzes in MyLab. Today I will expand on that topic to include personalized homework. In MyLab you can use the results of a quiz to load a personalized homework assignment. These are powerful tools, as they help students to determine which topics will require further study and then generates a homework assignment focused on those topics. Creating Personalized Homework I begin by making the quiz first. In my current algebra classes I…
As my students are getting ready for their final exam, I assign a MyMathLab quiz that is connected to a personalized homework assignment. There are 36 questions on the quiz, with 136 related questions on the homework assignment. For each question a student gets right on the quiz, all related problems (typically 4) are removed from the homework assignment. This allows students to focus on the problems they struggled with, which is one of the most important factors in preparing…
I have two sets of final exam review videos on YouTube. The first playlist, for Elementary Algebra, can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE703DB5743508D7 The second playlist, for Intermediate Algebra, can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL15AA6E8E21593D3D Please feel free to share with students and instructors who can use these. George
I think it is important to review with developmental math students in preparation for the final exam. I try to shoot for one week to devote for this review, and this semester I managed to get one week plus a day. I find that if I only have a day or two I just work problems at the board in rapid fire fashion while students watch. This week I am bringing in a batch of 10 problems each day, asking…