July Challenge Day 20: Operations with Rationals Error Analysis

It's been a few days since I've blogged primarily because I didn't feel like I have much to share but also because we've been a little on the busy side. I took my (almost) 2 year old to the movies Friday for his first real movie in a theater to see Planes: Fire and Rescue. I was a little nervous because he is so unpredictable right now. He's an incredible kid...we are blessed...but you just never really know how he's going to act in public. But, we went with a friend and her little boy. I thought worst thing that could happen was that I'd waste about $15 ...which, if you know me, can slightly make me cringe because I've been in quite the cheap-o stage lately. haha

But, he was a PERFECT angel and even fell asleep the last 20 minutes. To make it even better, we changed his bed to a toddler bed yesterday. I thought we'd have a pretty eventful night with him not wanting to stay in bed. To ease my nerves, I locked and put a gate at his door since he has recently learned how to unlock doors. (Judge me. But you won't see me on the news with my kid wandering the streets!) He was PERFECT. We put him in bed like normal, he cried for about 3 minutes, never trying to get up, and went straight to sleep and slept til about 8 a.m. He's a pretty awesome kid. Praise God!

Getting ready for bed!


In the movie.

Okay, enough about my sweet baby.

I was reminded about a resource I created this year with my Pre-AP Algebra 2 kiddos by reading Mrs. Reilly's blog about error analysis. This is a strategy that I started implementing this year for the first time with my kiddos. I have been so impressed with how much it really challenges kids to think.

When I taught my unit on rationals, I have my kids take a quiz using error analysis on operations of rationals. The whole unit, I watched frequent mistakes kids would make and took note. Then, I used these mistakes on the quiz. I worked it as they would with the mistakes, had them explain what the error was, and then had them correct the mistake to find a correct solution. I was surprised by how much this challenged my kids. Even the smartest students struggled to put into words where the mistake was. Even the types of mistakes I used that they were so accustomed to making before really tricked them at times. (Insert evil teacher laugh here). Overall, I was pleased with the outcomes and plan to do more of this stuff next year. I love it.


I plan to look back over my mistakes on the quiz and see if I need to make any changes. If you see any "errors" (haha, ones that were not intentional), let me know!

I do need to re-consider my approach to teaching adding and subtracting rational functions. I have researched and tried so many different things and nothing quite demonstrates the concept to the kids like I really want them to. They still struggle with this concept so much. If y'all have ANYTHING to help with this concept, please let me know! I am open to anything!

Have a blessed Sunday!
(3 1/2 days til TMC '14!!)

Brooke