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Post by Judy on Jan 17, 2021 12:17:42 GMT
Steve has suggested this twitter video for this week's discussion point- we would love to hear your thoughts!
Best wishes
Judy and Steve
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annag
New Member
Hi everyone
Posts: 4
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Post by annag on Jan 18, 2021 18:09:00 GMT
This is an interesting one. Years ago there was a perceived wisdom for teaching some students a method that they could follow and remember and replicate, the rationale for this being that maths was confusing enough for these learners so why add to the layer of confusion by teaching other methods. Things have moved on considerably. We know that it isn't just about processes, but about developing a deep understanding of number and the number system so that this knowledge can be applied to more complex problems. That is why we need to explore a range of methods. Additionally, just one of those 'other' methods might just unlock the mystery of number for one learner that a purely written process was not able to achieve.
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Post by Katherine Bishop on Jan 31, 2021 7:06:56 GMT
I agree that this is an interesting one. There are multiple ways of approaching a problem, and like 'annag' says above, the idea is to help students to understand meaning and concepts and why they are doing what they are doing - why is the 1 carried up to the next column?
I also think we need to be careful sometimes that students don't think that this is just an increased number of strategies and methods that they need to know - that the 'jump strategy' and 'bridging' and 'chunking' all need to be understood for a given problem. The burden then would seem greater for them - so much more to learn!
And we have also talked in one of the recent Zooms about the issue of parents helping children at home (especially now) and getting confused, possibly confusing the children more and so on. While we need to encourage and model use of mathematical language and get students more familiar with terminology and what it means in the right contexts, I think we need to find a pathway that won't overload students and make it overwhelming.
With that in mind, I tell my tutoring students that there are multiple ways of coming to an answer in maths, and that my job is to help them build up a wider range of tools in their maths toolkit so that they can pull out one that works for them best at any given time for a given problem. That metaphor seems to work for them and helps them realise the strategies are there for them to choose and use, rather than something that has control over them in a sense. It seems to give them more of a sense of agency in the whole process of working something out, and removes a bit of the stress. Once they find that one way works for them and they 'get it' they can sometimes then later, when pressure is off, see that another way works as well. I remember one student realising then that they understood 2 strategies for the problem and were happy that the first one they chose was still their favourite, that they didn't really need that other method in this case, but it could be in reserve for another time.
I hope that makes sense!
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