Thursday, February 19, 2009

Study Island and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire

There were two boys in a sixth grade classroom and they never watched the show, Who Wants to Be a Millionare. Every day in Reading Workshop, they got on a computer and did a session on Study Island. This is an online learning program that their school used to help them learn indicators that the state of Ohio's Department of Education deemed important.

Now both boys were hard workers, who did all of their assignments and got pretty good grades. They didn't cause problems in the classroom, treated their classmates with kindness, and seemed to be pretty good students. All of their teachers liked them, and saw them as role models to their peers.

One day, an intervention teacher pulled them out because their reading teacher noticed a weakness in a particular area. These boys obviously were not Millionaire fans, because they hadn't used their lifelines. As the teacher worked with them, she noticed that they kept missing the same types of questions, over and over and over and they never asked for help.

Now, being the smart person that she was, she asked them about it. Neither had ever asked anyone for help. In about 30 seconds, she explained how to correctly answer these types of questions.

If these two boys had watched Millionaire, they would have used their lifelines. They could have started with 50:50 and eliminated half of the answers that didn't make sense. Although the couldn't phone a friend, they could have asked a classmate for help. They also couldn't ask the audience, but they could have asked the teacher.

This story could be a fictitious account of what might happen in a classroom somewhere, sometime. There is a chance that it might have actually happened to students in a school somewhere. The point--if you don't get it, get some help. Ask the teacher, ask a friend, stop and think. Whatever you do, do something. Don't keep missing questions.

If you want to be successful at Study Island, and in life, when things are going wrong, figure out why, get help when you need it, and fix the problem!
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't really watch this show. I do ask for help though. I think that the two guys that kept missing the answers were to afraid to ask.

Anonymous said...

I really don't watch this show but some times I call a friend for help. I think that the two people thought they were to cool to ask. Or one of the people told the other one not to because it would make him seem wimpy.

Anonymous said...

I do not watch the show. But I am constantly asking for help. I think the two boys were embarrassed to ask for help.

Anonymous said...

When I am on Study Island I try to ask for help as much as I can. When I see a question I do not really get I just raise my hand and ask for help but when I don't raise my hand I ask my lifelines which are my neighbors that I sit next to. When my neighbors don't know what to do then I sit there trying to comprehend what the question is saying. Although I should have done that in the first place. When I get the question and know what it is saying then I go to the answers and I mark out the ones that I know are not the right ones. Then there is usually two or one answer left but I look back into the passage and find the right one. But when i am a million air I ask my lifelines and my teacher to help me.

Anonymous said...

My mom and I love this show. It's funny when my mom thinks them wrong. Usually she gets them right. I never get them right because I can't figure them out. I sometimes tell her I'm going to get this one, but then after a while I will ask her for help and she says “ I thought you were going to get this one.” It bothers me a lot that I can't figure them out.


I think that the two guys thought they knew everything and that they didn't need to ask for help.