{"id":63,"date":"2012-09-02T00:09:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T00:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrreddy.com\/blog\/?p=63"},"modified":"2024-10-12T14:25:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T14:25:00","slug":"classic-mistakes-brought-to-you-by-the-simpsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mrreddy.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/classic-mistakes-brought-to-you-by-the-simpsons\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic mistakes brought to you by the Simpsons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Here’s how I see it, it’s easier to learn from the maths mistakes of others than from your own. Probably because there’s an emotional association with making a mistake, I find pupils jump at the chance to dissect and discuss the root of misconceptions of others, and by others I mean the Simpsons, rather than their own.
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\nIn a class discussion, if you single out any of the pupils for making mistakes, you run the risk of embarrassing them and awakening the “I-was-never-any-good-at-maths” spectres that you’ve probably worked so hard to banish.<\/p>\n

But when Bart makes a mistake or Lisa can’t figure something out or Homer makes a booboo, then pupils are all over it.<\/p>\n

“Bart never remembers to include 1 and the number itself in the list of factors!” “Lisa seems to forget at least one factor – she’s probably not checking for pairs.”<\/p>\n

Factors<\/strong><\/div>\n

Every year I teach pupils how to find all the factors of a number and it always surprises me how I find a new way to make a meal of it. I would never seem to give the same definition of factors or use the same method twice – not because I didn’t want to or couldn’t remember but because the ones I was trying were not getting through to pupils. They just kept making the same mistakes no matter how I explained it. [Please share your winning ways for teaching factors in the comments!]<\/p>\n

So I made a list one day of the ways in which my pupils were struggling with factors and it occurred to me that there were enough to make it worthwhile spending a whole lesson just dealing with the common misconceptions (“classic mistakes” I like to call them); and so it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lesson Outline<\/strong>
\nNot wanting to make pupils feel like I was pointing a finger at them, I brought in the Simpsons. Here’s a format I’ve tried a couple of times and it seems to work.<\/p>\n