U2 Day 4-6: PD Discussion Topic

This lesson is about working on creating visuals to help the problem solving process. What is your favorite visual problem solving technique? Give a visual to go with your writing.

I use a combination of visuals, whether it be poster-size paper, PowerPoints, writing on the smartboard, dryerase board, etc. I try to mix it up and keep it fresh, so my students are kept on their toes and don’t get board or begin to expect the same thing. However, I try to get them to create their own visuals and/or devices that work best for them, to ensure that they are learning to the best of their capabilities, whether it’s taking notes, using their cell phones to record lectures, etc. Especially for my ELL students.

I use many visuals while teaching. I draw diagrams on the white board, i use physical examples that involve students standing or acting out the part of the lesson at hand, I have some students that learn better if they are doodling during a lecture while others lean better if they take notes. I play their strengths to their learning which reciprocates learning into their strengths.
Not really sure how you want me to give a visual to go with my writing…draw it out and paste it or what?.. :wink:

Diagrams and pictures, my favorite is animated video representations. I use all of these with my math classes as well as the ECS class.

Drawing a diagram of the problem or creating a table for the problem and solution.

Having the students stand up and complete the visual of the hand shake was fun for my students. It helped them understand the concept of solving problems by making their thinking visual.

My favorite visual problem solving technique is making sketches and diagrams, then adding, information in the form of words, numbers, and variables to them. In class I use a variety techniques such as tables, graphs, charts, objects, pictures, sketches, and diagrams.

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As others have mentioned, I like to also draw or sketch out possible problem solutions. That might include a picture or making a list of items. In my classroom I like to use the white board or the Interwrite board to draw things out for students or let them come up and demonstrate ways that they problem solve with drawing, sketching, or storyboarding.

I’m attaching a visual to go with our fence post problem.

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I think acting something out often pulls in the kinesthetic, auditory and visual learners. For the handshake activity the whole class could act it out. In my art history class I often ask students to take on the pose from an artwork to help them understand the meaning.

In the Fall PD session, we discussed having student groups shrink down the problem to fewer test cases. Make a solution then re-expand the solution to see if ti applies to the original test case.

It is much easier for students to represent the problem visually using smaller cases. For example, instead of doing the full number of people in the room, I asked my students to do it for 4 people.

Drawing diagrams works great for a lot of my students. An example for the handshake problem I gave:

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My favorite visuals are diagrams. Depending on the need, I like to draw pictures and and charts!

I always encourage the students to draw a diagram or use any kind of visual to help them with a problem. One of the things I did for the handshake problem was I gave groups of students yarn so they could actually see the connections (handshakes) that were there and they could actually count them.

Again…mindmaps are my favorite because you can create solutions strictly through brainstorming and thinking out the steps of the problems.

Most of my students used publisher or illustrator or even just a note book to draw the fence. It was great to hear their answers!

After doing the handshake activity and my kids were way too advanced for it, and just wrote the answers down I had to change up the fence post activity, and had them redo the handshake assignment. This time I told them this is like the video I showed them on Youtube… they all had to make posters to show HOW they solved it and they couldn’t use numbers at all in their drawings to replicate…but when they came up to present they could say numbers to explain the process. This challenged a lot of them to think outside the box. A lot of them knew the answer, but couldn’t put it in writing or drawings. Which I found very interesting!

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I use PowerPoint, Powtoons, diagrams, and many other visuals. I also like to give the students choices many students youtube.

Drawing a simple illustration or diagram is a great visual way of solving some problems.

I initially used paper and let them chart out their answers in groups. I was surprised that I got 4 different answers and none of them correct. So we did the activity together where I lined them up till I got 12 yards of fencing and had them count off. That’s when the lights went on. Same thing for the hand shaking activity. We all got up in line and started shaking.

Moat of my visuals are used using flip charts. My room is very small with very limited space and a smart board that does not work due to being placed on metal bar from chalk board.