KFCW Method of Solving Word Problems.

Yesterday, I showed how to solve word problems using the 5 W’s from english.  Today, it is the KFCW or “Kentucky Fried Chicken Wings”  which is a take off on KWL or know, wonder, learn.  I found it was another way to have my students read and really comprehend the information in the word problem.  

The K stands for what do you know.  In other words, what information does the word problem give you to work with.  The F is for find or what are you supposed to be finding.  In other words, the question.  The C stands for consider or what are the things you need to think about in order to solve the problem.  The W is for the work itself.  

Let’s look at this problem.

“Biologists need to know roughly how many fish live in a certain lake, but they don’t want to stress or otherwise harm the fish by draining or dragnetting the lake.  Instead, they let down small nets in a few different spots around the lake, catching, tagging and releasing 96 fish.  A week later, after the tagged fish have a chance to mix thoroughly with the general population, the biologists come back and let down their nets again.  They catch 72 fish, of which 4 are tagged.  Assuming the catch is representative, how many fish live in the lake?

Know - I know they tagged 96 fish.  I also know that one week later they caught 72 fish of which 4 had tags so 4/72 are tagged.

Find - They want to know how many fish are in the lake?

Consider - This looks like I have to use ratios due to the 4 tagged out of 72 fish.

Work - 4/72 = 96/x.  So 72 x 96 = 6912/4 = 1728 total fish.

This is a bit shorter than what I spoke out earlier in the week but it does require students to think in more detail about what they need to do to solve any problem.  Some problems might require them to find the area of a circle but they only have the diameter so they’d have to remember that the A formula needs the radius which is half of the diameter.  This thought would go under consideration.

Some problems will give a decimal as part of the answer but they can only use whole numbers such as with cans of paint.  Most cans of paint tell you how many square feet  they cover and you have to divide the total area of the walls by the square footage to get the number of cans needed but it’s important to include a note about rounding up to the next integer, otherwise you might not have enough paint.  

So this is my “Kentucky Fried Chicken Wings” Method.  Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear.  Have a great day.

Flash cards

I am having my students do word problems today and it became apparent that my students have issues with some of the vocabulary in terms of operations. 
I introduced students to the KFCW chart which is a math version of KWL.  They have to list what they know or information they are given.  F is used for the part of What do you want to find?  C is what do you need to consider?  This is where they write down what operation do they need to use? Is there some formula they will need to use?  How are you going to solve the problem?  Finally is W which stands for Work. This is where the student shows their work and the solution.  I showed it to the new Science teacher and she is making her students use the same form for science word problems.  I like the consistency between the two classes.
As my students are working the problems they get to the words telling them what operation to apply and they don't really know those words.  I have the SAS flash card app on their iPads, so I think beginning tomorrow, I will have students create flash cards for operation vocabulary so they can test themselves and learn the vocabulary.  I like the SAS flash card app because they can make either text based cards with the word, a picture, a voice over and the answer or an actual math problem. 
Yesterday, I managed to update the OS on all the ipads and downloaded a few different notebook type programs so I can use a different one in each period.  I am hoping that this will eliminate the issue of one student messing with another student's work.  I am hoping to begin the notebooks around mid October.