You know that glazed-over look that students give when they don’t know how to do a math problem. Well, it may very well come from the fact that they don’t understand what the vocabulary means.
So, what can we do to help them?
First off, we can start off by providing a lot of examples of what the word means and then asking questions to help them clarify.
Let’s take factors as an example.
We can use this fill-in-the-blank example to help us to guess what the factors are.
Then with these additional examples, we get a better picture of what factors are.
We can ask some interesting questions like:
- Can you guess what the factors are?
- Why does 9 only have one factor?
- What is the same and different about these factors?
And, we can ask questions like: “Can 20 be a factor of 10? Can 3?”
This shows examples that represent the vocabulary term and then by introducing 20, I show an example that does not represent the math vocabulary. I typically look for examples that are easily mixed up.
Then, have them describe what they see and what they do not see. Those are the characteristics.
Or, if they are having trouble explaining themselves, at the beginning you can demonstrate the thinking process yourself.
“Well I know that 20 can’t be a factor of 10 because it is bigger than 10, but I know that 10 is a factor of 20 because it divides into 20 evenly. Also, 3 doesn’t divide evenly into 10.”
Finally, have them come up with their own definition of what the word means and see if their definition fits all the examples. This helps them OWN it and better understand it.
And it also shows what they understand. Then if there is anything missing, work together to revise the definition to make sure that they are even more clear and precise.
One nice way to put this all together is to use a Frayer Model.
Here’s an example Frayer diagram for the factors.
Once your Frayer model is complete, then it can be stored away for future review.
Hope that helps you out!
If it did, check out our other blog posts for secrets of mastering math and becoming a high performer.
