Color coding is a form of scaffolding. It can be used to highlight specific parts of a diagram or problem or to help differentiate between different parts. Above is my first attempt at using color coding.
The 8th grade student simply could not interpret the table to answer the question – “explain the trend…”. I originally attempted to draw arrows from number to number to no avail. When I colored the two columns and asked him to tell me about the pink numbers then the yellow numbers he was able to interpret then answer the question.
The working memory for many students can be quite limited. Teachers often include many little details that are easy for us to process but can take much more effort by the student. It’s like a computer that has too many applications running at one time and slows down. Asking a student to look at the pink numbers can be much easier to comprehend than asking him to look at the column for year.