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4.4
Validation
P
urpose
The role this topic plays in quantitative reasoning
Your ability to use
validation
is critical to the quality and value of the work you produce. Producing work
of the quality that your supervisors or clients expect, value, and demand requires two things. First, you
need to be able to identify what you need to learn, then effectively learn it, and finally know that you have
learned it so you can perform your job at its highest level. Then once you are on top of your job you must
be able to produce quality problem solutions that others know are correct. If they must check your work,
your value decreases significantly. These two major aspects of your work are addressed by this activity.
The validation process includes both the
validation of your learning
and the
validation of your work
so
that you are able to convince others that your problem solutions satisfy all interested parties.
L
earning Goals
What you should learn while completing this activity
1. Learn to classify an activity as learning versus problem solving
2. Validate that problem solutions are correct, appropriate, and sufficient
3. Learn to use five methods of validating that you know what you have learned
4. Learn to use five methods of validating your work
D
iscovery
Finding out for yourself
Think back over the last few days and make a list of 10 things that you did or accomplished where you
were sure that you did it right or were correct. Examples: “I made Aunt Thelma’s potato salad” or “I put
together a literature list for my English class.” For each of those 10 items on your list, determine whether
it is
learning
or
problem solving
. Once you have done that, think through each item and ask yourself
how you actually know that you were correct. For
learning
items, how do you know that you learned
that thing? For
problem
solving
items, how do you know you really did solve the problem?
W
hat Do You Already Know?
Tapping into your existing knowledge
1. How do you go about checking that your evaluation of a formula is correct?
2. What are three methods that you know to check that you have simplified an expression correctly?
3. What are three ways that you can be sure that you have solved a system of two linear equations in
two variables?
4. How do you know that you understand the difference between an equation and an expression?