Colinsmum, what did the "What to do when stuck" card say? We are going to steal this...
As near as I remember, it's:
What to do when stuckIs it worth zapping harder?
Can I see a better way to do it?
If not, mark the question "?".
Go on to the next question.
If "???", revisit questions marked "?"
Re-read each question carefully.
Keep brain turned on!That's fairly telegraphic so as to fit onto a laminated business card. He talks about "brain zapping" problems so that's the first point - will another more concentrated go with the same technique crack the problem? For the second, it may even say "Can I see a mathematician lazy way?" - I once had a maths teacher who told me maths was the art of being lazy (since so much of it is about finding neat easy ways to solve problems that would otherwise be a lot of boring exhaustive search, trial and improvement, measurement or whatever) and this made a deep impression on DS. The point here is to spot cases where he can't do it because he's missing a trick. Then I want him to indicate any question he's left out because he couldn't do it with a ?, and I don't want him to do that for more than three questions in a row without interrupting the process and trying again. Finally, like most people he can trip over misreading questions or just failing to think, and that accounts for the last two lines.
