Since I just finished grading them, I decided to blog about one of my favorite new teaching techniques this year…the SAW.
SAW stands for Skill Assessment Wednesday. Every week, students take this little mini-quiz of sorts on old material to keep their skills sharp. They only have about 10 minutes to complete it and it can be on anything we have learned thus far! I feel like I never review older material as well as I should so I took proactive approach this year to stopping that. Everything we learn is important and you cannot forget! I chose Wednesday because it was in the middle of the week and then the letters just happened to match up. The students always know that the last 10 minutes is going to be spent on this. I will tell my students to clear their desk and they all start shouting out “Here comes the saw!” It is pretty amusing actually. Lately, I have been putting up signs that says “SAW Today” with different pictures of saws such as a buzzsaw and a hacksaw. Soon, I will get even more creative and put up a sea-saw and Arkansas! HA! Here is an example of one that gave earlier on. This is for my lower level algebra II class. We had already covered the basics of what a mathematical model is, linear functions, and had just finished systems of equations when I gave this.
Functions Are Fun 