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Posters play an essential role in classrooms. They centralize informa-
tion and provide instant access to frameworks for working. Students
should see strategies, models, rubrics and checklists posted to facilitate
their thinking.There are a variety of structures that can scaffold success for problem
solving. These include strategy banks, model banks, rubrics and check-
lists. These structures provide resources for thinking about strategies,
models and the process of problem solving. They provide a way for
reflecting on the work in a methodical manner. These structures provide
mental and concrete scaffolds for word problem work. It is one thing to
say to a student, “Check your work,” while it is another to say, “Here
is a checklist, look it over and use it to think about how you solved this
problem.”
Strategy Banks
Strategies are ways of working with numbers. Strategies are the stuff you
do with the numbers, the ways in which you think about adding or sub-
tracting them. A strategy bank can be housed on an anchor chart, a student
individual resource sheet or something written on the word problem itself
(see Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8). Figure 4.1 is an example
of what that could look like.
You want to get to the point where you can list the strategies and
the students know what they are. These can be listed at first on the
tests so students can see the strategies and choose one way and check
another.