Contest: Win an MP3 Player by Sharing Your Best Mnemonic Device
February 13, 2008
Mr. Davidson in my Algebra II class had a method to help us struggling students to simplify equations. He called it his “number rap.” It went a little something like this:
“Put your letters on the left and your numbers on the right.
You do it this way, you get ‘em all right.
Combine the like terms, multiply, divide,
You do it this way, easy slide by.”
I’ve never heard the term “easy slide by” before or since, and I haven’t taken a math class in more than a decade, but I still remember the right way to solve equations.
You’ve probably got your own little tricks to help students remember important information, whether they’re acronyms, imagery, or arrhythmic algebraic hip hop. Instructify wants to hear your best educational mnemonic devices. And we’re giving away a free Philips GoGear MP3 player to the best one.
Just post your memory-enhancing tricks in the comments section by February 20. They don’t have to be your creation, but uncommon or unique entries will definitely get preference. ROY G BIV and Every Good Boy Does Fine are classics, but we want to hear some new ideas.
We’ll post the top answers later this month. Now’s your chance to show off your creativity, plus help your fellow teachers add a few tricks to their repertoire. -BILL FERRIS
Update: The contest deadline is Friday, February 29. Mnemonic devices can be for any subject.
For which come first in graphing x/y coordinates:
“Side to Side; up and down” with arm gestures or other movements
Not bad. It reminds me of Mr. Miyagi’s martial arts lessons in Karate Kid. Paint the fence!
When I teach my third graders how to estimate, I use a process that one of my buddies taught me long ago called, “Punch It Up.”
Let’s say that you want to round the number 86 to the nearest 10. There are some preliminary step is to identify place values, but the meat of estimation comes in knowing whether to round a number up or down.
So the kids know that they are analyzing the number 6 in 86. They hold up 6 fingers. With 6 fingers, they are able to make a fist, and with that fist they can, “Punch It Up” to 90. If the number had been 84, and they had been holding 4 fingers up, they would see that they are NOT able to make a fist to punch it up, so they have to just let go of it and let it drop down to 80.
To punch it up, you have to have at least 5 fingers in order to make a fist.
The kids really take hold of this concept and get excited about rounding.
That’s really fun, especially if they get to shout “hi-YA!” as they deliver a numerical uppercut. I wish I’d learned it that way when I was a kid.
To b or not to b that is the y-intercept.
Tis m that gives the rate of change, the slope, the rise over run.
Whatever it takes…. Apologies to William and those serious about his writings.
Not sure if they have to be math related. Here are a couple I’ve picked up over the years. King Peter Can Order Five Green Salads (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). Bench PG (Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama and Guatamala). Don’t know why this helps me probably because played ball with a kid name Peter when I was learning countries of Central America
You raise a good point, Rodney. Entries definitely do not have to be math related. I think math lends itself to this kind of thing more than some other subjects. But we’ll accept entries for any subject.
When teaching my students the Properties of Addition and Multiplication I have found these devices very helpful:
I.C.A. plus sign (I See A plus sign). The ‘I’ stands for Identity, ‘C’ for Commutative and ‘A’ for Associative.
I.C.A.Z. multiplication sign (I See A Zany multiplication sign). The first three are the same as addition and the ‘Z’ stands for the Zero Property.
Students find this useful because it helps them remember the unusual names of same and links certain properties with certain operations.
Joel, reminds me of mnemonic for order of ops:
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
for
Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiply/Divide
Add/Subtract
BTW Bill, not a submission since that’s a well known one.
Also, this week I was doing evaporation, condensation, precipitation, which is not a mnemonic, but you use hand gestures to help them remember.
