Activity Description
Title: Solving Two-Step Word Problems
Synopsis: this activity should be done early in the year to get students engaged and understanding how to think about solving real-life word problems. Using real-world situations is key here, not naked number problems that involve computation only. Students need to think mathematically and set up what they are solving for in the problem. Students also use a letter or symbol to represent the unknown in the problem to be solved.
Lead-up Skills / Preassessment: Lead-up skills are assessed to help teachers identify any missing readiness skills students may need to attempt the standards in this Activity. Use problems provided to see what students already know about concepts that to solving problems: inverse operations, one-step problems involving all four operations; Start-Change-Result type problems; the Commutative, Associative Distributive, and Identity Property - - students donot have to use the terms, but they need to understand the properties and how they can use them to set up equations for the problems.
Anchor Problem: at least one is provided for the standard; this should be posted and referred to during the instruction associated with those standard.
Direct Instruction: Unpack the standard to identify the underlying skill and key vocabulary ; then use
them in the teaching sequence. The underlying skill: determine what the problem is asking, and set up the equation with an unknown to illustrate the problem. Use order of operations to solve for the unknown.
a. Key vocabulary: It is essential that one does not use “trigger” words (e.g., “how many altogether, how may are left over,” etc.) Students must read the problem and see what they are to find and make the equation represent that scenario. Word problems are a key here in the teaching; naked math computation will not get students to mastery of this standard.
b. Check for understanding: Pose problems about students in the class or situations in the school that are real for students. This helps students think mathematically about real-life situations. Ordering pizza, earning money, buying tickets, planning a party, etc. are real-world for third graders.
c. Guided practice: Work through sample problems with students and model how to represent a word problem with an equation. Again, use real problems about students or the school at first, then broaden the focus to relevant things that interest students. Finally, use many scenarios in different contexts in an attempt to find something to which all students can identify or relate. Use the results of these guided practice problems to determine what additional teaching or practice is needed. Not all students need the same thing, so meet students in small groups based on specific need.
d. Independent practice: Provide students with independent practice to apply their problem-solving skills to a variety of situations. Be sure that problems used model the types of problems found on the OST such as have been shown at the beginning of this document. Several listed at the end of this document.
Problems for Practice: Standards-based problems are provided to use for different parts of the instruction, including on the practice work and assessments. These problems require students to document that they have internalized the core ideas of the standard(s) and can show independent mastery.
Final Assessment: At Grades 3-8, the Assessments include test items that reflect those used on the High Stakes Tests. There are practice problems leading up to this. The test items are constructed to look exactly like those items students will encounter on their High-Stakes Tests and related to real-world situations.
CUSTOMER: Thanks for considering this Activity as part of your approach to your state’s MATH standards. If you have any comments as to how it worked - - or didn’t! - - we’d welcome them! See the contact information to send us feedback. -- the EdFOCUS Team
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