Hmmm....I remember when i was in school a few years ago, I like math because it seemed just like a puzzle... But this puzzle is seemed like without a purpose.. Maybe because of that, most of students said that the exercises only yielded useless numbers...huhu. When i started to learn science that involved mathematical calculations such as physics, i started to see the usefulness in math as a tool to solve science related problems.. All the algebra, phytogoras theorem, calculus finally made sense and seemed intuitive. Before then, they were just puzzles that led to nowhere.. am i right???
Now i wanna share a fantastic presentation by a maths teacher, Dan Meyer, explaining what is wrong with virtually every maths textbook out there...enjoy!!
What I like about his idea is that it focuses on first understanding the concept, and only then applying the maths....for me, this is the right way!!! It harnesses your intuition about a problem you would normally encounter in the real world to get you on the hook, so you have no choice but to learn the maths to get your answer...
He speaks as if this is a problem unique to the US, but it is not!! As he says, teachers from all around the world have approached him about his ideas, because they resonate on a global basis... Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman has a famous essay on the irrelevance of mathematics textbooks in a similar vein...
Notice that Meyer identifies five symptoms of bad maths teaching.. I think all of us in our school system have suffered from these symptoms at some point; the aversion to word problems and the over-eagerness to harness a simple formula must ring a bell for anyone who's ever stepped into a classroom here. Now the question is, how can we bring this new philosophy of teaching into our classrooms and textbooks??? Hmmm...think about it (^_^)..
He speaks as if this is a problem unique to the US, but it is not!! As he says, teachers from all around the world have approached him about his ideas, because they resonate on a global basis... Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman has a famous essay on the irrelevance of mathematics textbooks in a similar vein...
Notice that Meyer identifies five symptoms of bad maths teaching.. I think all of us in our school system have suffered from these symptoms at some point; the aversion to word problems and the over-eagerness to harness a simple formula must ring a bell for anyone who's ever stepped into a classroom here. Now the question is, how can we bring this new philosophy of teaching into our classrooms and textbooks??? Hmmm...think about it (^_^)..
But...Trying to introduce a change into the way math is taught in our schools would be very demanding... It is not just about changing the syllabus and the textbooks ...those are the easy bits... It is ultimately about changing the mindset of an entire generation of teachers... Teachers need to be retrained to be able to teach math problems in a different way... Obviously, parents would also need to be convinced that the new way is better and not just another fuzzy way of learning math.... that all...
Leave a comment plez... ^^
2/14/2011 8:58 AM
pergh....cikgu pehah dah start berbicara pasal math ni....huih...genpaq. hahaha