Re: teaching math vocab
Posted by DSF/NJ on 7/03/08
First of all, these names are not really deliberately long and
obtuse. These words all have meaning and they make sense -
however, we no longer speak the english language the way they
did hundreds of years ago; we no longer study latin and other
languages to understand the roots of some of these words.
Whenever I can, I try to break these words down into parts and
define them for the kids. If they understand what it means, it
makes it easier to remember.
Also, a colleague of mine used this word wall technique and I
liked it, so I adopted it. (Thanks, Delia.):
She (and I) bought mini-sentence strips from Lakeshore (easier
than cutting card stock and larger than index cards) and when a
new term was introduced, in addition to writing it on the board
and having the kids copy it into their notes with a definition,
she would hand off a sentence strip and a fat marker to a
student and tell him to write the word legibly on the card and
staple (that's how we were told to put things up)it to the wall.
The kids liked angling the cards.
In later years, I used a 'wall pocket' system of the type that
elementary teachers use for vocabulary words. I tacked it to
the wall and simply swapped out the words when they became too
old to leave up and I needed room for new topic words.
One of my teachers uses 6x8 index cards and has them stapled to
a bulletin board starting from the bottom up. She does it
systematically, row by row, until the entire board is full by
the end of the year.
On 7/03/08, Sara wrote:
> On 7/02/08, Math Mommy wrote:
>> How do you teach math vocabulary? My district is insistent
>> on teaching vocabulary each six weeks. I want to do
>> something more creative then just looking up the
>> definition in the book. Are there any good creative ways
>> to teach vocabulary that will really help my students
>> understand the meaning of the words? (this would be for
>> 8th grade math and Algebra)
>
> Yes. Have them invent new words and phrases for those words
> and phrases. Math words and phrases are too long, too heavy
> and too obtuse.
> What else could we call 'decimilization of fractions'? My
> kids shut down at the very name.
>
> And why do we call algebra algebra? Where did the word come
> from and why? And what better could we call it? What's
> another phrase for 'quadratic equations'? What if you HAD to
> rename all those things?
>
> I find it gets kids thinking, really thinking and they love
> the task - they feel like they're getting back somehow at
> whoever gave these things such long and obtuse names.
>
>
Posts on this thread, including this one
- teaching math vocab, 7/02/08, by Math Mommy.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/02/08, by Terrence.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/03/08, by dm.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/03/08, by Joy.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/03/08, by Florida.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/03/08, by Sara.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/03/08, by DSF/NJ.
- Re: teaching math vocab, 7/04/08, by Message To DSF/NJ.
- Re: Message to DSF/NJ, 7/04/08, by DSF/NJ.
- Re: Message to DSF/NJ, 7/07/08, by Math Mommy.
- Re: Word Wall, 7/08/08, by middle school math teacher.
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