How Al’s Student Wrote the Exam with a Broken Hand (on a SMART Board)
By Al Wolmer
Al Wolmer is a SMART Exemplary Educator and Head of the Math Department at Yeshiva Atlanta High School in Atlanta, Georgia. Al recently discovered another great use for his SMART Board and wanted to share his story.
Hi again, SMARTEEs…
I just had to share this story with you about what I think is a somewhat unusual use of the SMART Board.
In my lower level classes (Algebra 1 and Algebra 2) I occasionally have students come to the SMART Board and work out problems. However, in the advanced classes, I generally don’t. We could have a long discussion about the effectiveness of different classroom techniques and how they vary with grade level, course level, school culture, etc., but I digress.
I gave an exam recently in my Honors Algebra 2 class. One of my students broke her hand in a volleyball tournament earlier that week. It is her right hand and, of course, she’s right-handed. In situations like these, various options are usually considered, such as postponing the exam for her until she’s healed, administering the exam orally, or having her dictate her work to a person acting as scribe. Frankly, none of these options appealed to her or me. Then she came up with a brilliant idea. While she can’t write with a pencil on paper with her left hand, she feels confident that she could write in large characters with her left hand alone on the SMART Board! Then, we can save the result and I can grade it along with the other students’ exams. So, she’s going to take her exam on the SMART Board! Like I said, brilliant!
I’ve thought of many ways to use my SMART Board, but never like this!
About Al Wolmer
Al Wolmer is a SMART Exemplary Educator, SMART Certified Trainer for Notebook and Math Tools and Head of the Math Department at Yeshiva Atlanta High School. He is also an AP Calculus Reader for the College Board. In addition, Al has presented at numerous regional, national, and international conferences on the effective use of SMART Boards and SMART Notebook software in an advanced math classroom. Most recently Al presented at the Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference in October, where he will give four presentations on different aspects of the effective use of SMART products.
Great idea! I only wish I had had a SMART Board when I broke my writing arm in Grade 7! I think my left-handed chicken scratch cost me some marks on my exams.
Al,
Wonderful idea. I once created a math test in Notebook for students to take on the classroom computers. Each question had the manipulatives necessary for the problem if they needed them. They could drag numbers around to work out problems, etc. It was actually a retest a day after some did horribly on the regular test. They scored much higher just by being able to work with the content in Notebook.
I started making that an option for most of the math tests after that.
I”m going to share your idea with the teachers in my district. Thanks.