…it serves no purpose to a student with limited conceptual understanding. If they evaluate their answer and decide that it doesn’t make sense, they don’t know how to fix it. Their options are to start over completely, or ignore the issue. Is it any surprise they choose ignore?I get some of my best thoughts about teaching from cooking shows. Or medical books. Or HBO dramas. This one was from cooking shows. The head chefs constantly remind their proteges to taste as they go. Many of them don’t and the results are disastrous. I don’t taste when I cook for the same reason my students don’t check their work: If it tastes bad, I have no idea what to do about it!
I suggest training students on how to find and fix their mistakes:
- Check your units (if you add or subtract, the units match and the answer has the same units; if you multiply or divide, the units change!)
- Locate your decimal point.
- and… What suggestions do you have?