Dishes problem

 


To solve the problem, I made a table of guests and dishes (attached) that worked my way up to 9 at which point I realized that there were 9 dishes served for 9 people. However, the lcm had not been reached yet so once we hit the lcm of 12 guests, then we will have 13 plates. So multiplying 13 plates by 5 we would get 65 multiplying 12 by 5 we get 60 guests.

Interestingly enough, in our assessment course, one of the main reasons for cheating was that this assessments does not matter to me. Therefore, I think it’s important to create problems from students cultures or cultures belonging to their friends. It’s a way to make each student feel recognized.

Moreover, it adds meaning to word problems where the anxiety of students may be removed as they can relate the problem to something they’ve heard, seen, or experienced in some way. Therefore, they will be more incentivized to give their best effort and thus it would be a productive class or assessment.

Having a problem or puzzle story and imagery helps. It gives meaning to the problem we are solving. What I mean is that as students are solving the problem, they feel like they become part of it. I know when I was solving the party, I thought of a specific type of dish from my culture that each group of people would be eating to make it easier to memorize and refer back to. Some of the meals are suited for 2 people, some for 3, and some for 4. I also imagined a dining hall and servers as I was solving the problem which made it more enjoyable.

Comments

  1. Erica HuangOctober 16, 2024 at 4:03 PM

    Good work and reflection, Zain! It's great that you made connections to the assessment course. You also made an interesting point about how using stories could potentially reduce students' anxiety towards word problem.

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