Homework Checker
Homework
CheckerHomework Checker
Opportunity..................................................................................................................................
Do you allow your students to check their math papers with a calculator? Excel
can offer a fun way to check the students’ papers. You can either build a
worksheet where they can plug in the problems and get the answer, or where
they can plug in the problem along with their answer, and Excel will indicate if
the answer is correct or not.
Solution and Overview
The beauty of the visible calculator invention is that you can scroll back in
time, change any previous cells, and then all future calculations will
automatically recalculate. It is fairly simple to set up a formula that multiplies
two cells. Your students could plug in the terms from a sheet of math problems
and the spreadsheet would show them the correct answer.
If you want to be less direct about the process, you could set up a logical
formula to test if the student’s answer to the problem matches the real answer.
In this case, rather than seeing the right answer, they simply know that they
got the problem wrong and it is up to them to work through the problem again.
Creating the Solution
- Format font and set column width.
Start with a blank spreadsheet. Select all cells by typing Ctrl+A. On the
Formatting toolbar, set the font size to 24 points. Use Format → Column →
Width and set the columns to a width of 15.