It's time for a change! Tradition often prevails over innovation, and that is certainly true with math teaching and learning.For far too long, math instruction has been about learning and practicing procedures. The teacher demonstrates "how" to do the math, guides the students through practice exercises, and then provides time for students to practice the procedures independently. Perhaps this procedural approach to learning math has contributed to the widespread negativity towards math among our adult population.We need to break this trend! Below you will find four ways to build thinking and understanding that leads to deeper learning and understanding.Use concrete objects: Many students learn by manipulating objects to facilitate understanding. This allows students to "see" the math, whether they're working on counting, subtraction facts, multi-digit division, or finding the value of "x."Draw pictures: Picture drawing is another tool that helps students "see" the math.Even when working on complex thinking, sketching a picture or drawing a diagram will help bring math to life.Connect visuals to numbers: Students won't need to depend on objects and pictures forever - these are simple tools that facilitate understanding. It's very helpful to have students represent the visuals with numbers at the same time, connecting the numbers/symbols to the visual representations.Apply to contexts: It's extremely helpful to use context situations from the very beginning. In traditional math classes, we often save the story problems until the end of the lesson. However, helping students think of math as relevant to real-life from the very beginning is a powerful tool. Provide children with context situations that they can act out with objects and pictures from the start - this will help them make sense of the numbers down the road.By providing students with thinking tools they can use to make sense of math ideas, you exponentially increase the chances that students will develop a positive disposition towards math. Visuals and contexts are powerful tools - give it a try!Finally, check out the story included in last week's blog if you haven't already. It's a great story about a teacher who resisted the pressure to teach traditionally and found that magic happened when she used KP Ten-Frame Tiles to promote student learning.
