One of the benefits of my commute each day is that I get to listen to the radio. Since most stations annoy me with their morning shows, I usually listen to one of the local Christian stations because they're slightly less annoying--and really, it does help wake me up to positive things. Anyways. The thing that keeps me listening to this station (as much as I think I hear the same songs over the same time frames every day) is that occasionally a song comes on that reminds me of a loved one going through a rough time. For example "Jesus Bring the Rain," "Held" and "Praise you in this storm" always remind me to pray for my cousins and their little boy. Other songs remind me to pray for my sister and her family. I'm trying to tie certain long-term prayer requests to different songs so that this becomes more frequent for me and I can remember more people. Yeah, I could always put sticky notes in the car or something....but those tend to distract me and flutter to the floor.
Another benefit (less inspiring unless you are a math nerd) is getting to study the different concepts in math across different grade levels. One of the concepts that bugs me a bit in the way it's commonly presented is "unit rate." A few months ago when I was reviewing 8th graders for that wonderful state test, I noticed a difficulty in explaining how to know what order to make the ratio for a unit rate. See, we as math teachers stress the importance of order when constructing ratios, yet very frequently, unit rates are formed inconsistently from the sentence structure. I'm trying to find common ties and word choice--because this is a common struggle for students--especially those with reading difficulties. To give you an example:
"Find the unit rate of gallons of gasoline if Joe buys 13.5 gallons of gas for $62.45" (common sense says the ratio desired is $/gal)
"Find the unit rate of miles if Amy drives 270 miles in 4.5 hours" (order is written reverse above, but is looking for mph)
"Find the unit rate of a scale model that uses 3 in to represent 15 mi" (so do they want mi/in or in/mi?)
So far, it's pretty much standard that unit rate in a problem involving money means unit price ($/unit). The other situations are a bit trickier though because common sense is the only difference I can explain between them. It is just another example of the importance of correct grammar and sentence structure in math problems.
While I'm pretty sure no one else cares much about that last little bit, I just wanted to put it to writing for something to study more. (For example, I was just about to write out another concept that has been on my mind...but I have forgotten it already)
Posted by Anna at August 11, 2008 06:35 PM | TrackBack