DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709120165

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   92 lines

TEACHERS WROTE THE BOOK ON STUDENT MIND-BENDING

YOU HAVE BEEN hired to take a family portrait. But there's a catch: The family has provided only clues as to where the relatives should sit.

It's your job to arrange them as the family intends. How do you do it?

Hint: You don't have to be photographer to answer. But you do have to be a middle-school student. (see accompanying answer).

That's because mind-benders such as this are commonplace in a new activity workbook written by four Chesapeake educators. ``Critical Thinking'' gears toward improving problem solving, specifically for middle-school students.

The teachers - Debbie Haver, Elaine Haven, Alice Koziol and Dan Mulligan - all have backgrounds in math. But they stress the workbook isn't just for math skills.

``It asks a student to stretch,'' said Mulligan, a math supervisor in the school system. ``And in doing that the kids develop critical thinking skills.''

The book is available nationwide, and isn't just for teachers, the authors say.

``It's a very user-friendly book,'' says Haver, an assistant principal at Great Bridge Middle School. She hopes parents give it to their children, who could go through the lessons on a long car trip, for example.

The teachers decided to focus on middle-school students because that age is when students start to become disinterested in school, Mulligan said.

``When kids hit middle school, they tend to dissociate themselves from school,'' Mulligan said. ``This is for kids who need help getting into school.''

``They're kind of stuck in the middle in transition,'' Haver said. ``They don't quite see the relevance for education at the moment.''

Some of the book's 30 lessons are math-related. But they're not traditional arithmetic questions.

``Students have to know not just how to add, but when to add,'' Mulligan said.

For example, some questions ask students to discover patterns: Of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 13, 17 - which doesn't belong? (Answer: 4. It's not a prime number.)

Many questions involve words. For example, find the connection - planet, satellite, orbit, galaxies. (Answer: They all deal with outer space).

Some, such as the family-portrait question, are more involved.

One of the goals of the workbook is to prepare the students for standardized tests that they take in eighth grade.

But the activity book has a more practical purpose as well. The questions were formed after talking with various business leaders about what kind of knowledge they'd like middle-school students to have.

The activity book is the first by the educators, who have been working together for about 10 years.

The group's meetings began as brainstorming sessions for ways to train others to teach math. They met someone who had written for Instructional Fair, an educational publishing company. He suggested that they write their own books, and the rest is math history.

Today, the group conducts sessions every couple of weeks, from anywhere from one to five hours. The brainstorming is split between writing and training methods.

The group also has two other books for middle-school students in the works.

``Funtastic Math Games'' focuses on the math standards of learning by setting up games for two or four participants, or a whole group. The other, ``57 Great Math Stories,'' combines math with real-world dilemmas that teens face. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by CHARLIE MEADS

Math teachers Alice Koziol, left, Debbie Haver, Dan Mulligan and

Elaine Haven collaborated to write a middle school mind-bending

activity book, called Critical Thinking. The book is now available

nationwide.

Graphic

MIND-BENDER

The Richardson family has decided to take a family picture. You

have been hired as the photographer. Mrs. Richardson has handed you

the plan that the family has created. The plan indicates where each

member of the family will stand for the picture. Use the clues

provided by Mrs. Richardson to determine where each member of the

family should stand.

CLUES

1) The son, Paul, stands in front of his sister Cindy.

2) Daughter Milly is next to Mr. Richardson.

3) Mrs. Richardson is to the right of Paul.

4) The youngest child, Milly, is next to Cindy.

5) Mrs. Richardson is to the right of oldest son, Tom.

6) Mr. Richardson is in back of his wife.

7) Tom is in front of Milly.

8) Tom is next to Paul.

THE ANSWER

Back row (from left): Cindy, Milly, Mr. Richardson

Front row (from left): Paul, Tom, Mrs. Richardson

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu