Clue 1: I am greater than 15 and less than 40.
Clue 2: If you double me, I become a number that ends in 0.
Clue 3: 1/5 of me is equal to 5.
This might be a fun group game, but I'm not sure of the value of this worksheet.
So, math people, help me out. Why would my son or anyone else ever need to know the answer to the above problem?
I'm not a math teacher, but I'll take a stab at being devil's advocate. Will you ever see that specific example in real life? Most likely not. However, there are some underlying skills involved that would prove useful.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there is a number of arithmetic skills within that problem. You most certainly need to know how to add, divide, multiply and to have a strong grasp of greater than/less than. Additionally, there's problem-solving skills you learn from having to take in multiple clues. Lastly, it encourages my favorite math, guess and check (there's a reason I teach Social Studies and not Math).
An assignment like this could allow a teacher to assess a myriad of student skills, assuming they required kids to show their work. With that being said, I can't help but wonder if a real-life word problem couldn't have been crafted to provide more meaning to the assignment.
Your points are well-taken, Ryan. As you state at the end of your comment, a real-life word problem would have much more use. Sadly, this looks a lot like boring rote memory practice to me.
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