Two ways of teaching and learning maths
A few years ago, I read a fantastic book called The Elephant in the Classroom – Helping Children to Learn Maths by Jo Boaler. It is no understatement to say that it transformed my thoughts about the way we teach maths.
I don’t think I am alone when I say,”I’m not very good at maths.” In fact, I know that many of us suffer a crisis of confidence when it comes to this subject. My husband seems to share the same feelings and yet we have two children who have excelled in maths and gone on to have successful careers within the industry. We couldn’t have been all that bad, then?
After reading the book, I believe it is down to the teaching of the maths. My husband and I went to the same school, with the same maths teachers. We were taught in the same way and maths didn’t make sense to either of us!
Jo Boaler believes that all pupils are born with an ability to do maths but that it is drummed out of us. She beilieves that there are basically two ways of teaching maths to children.
Some children just need to be able to ‘do it’ – be given the rule and let them get on with it – a minimalist view. Whilst other children need the explanation of why it’s like that – the full picture.
Let me explain further. If we look at dividing fractions:
- Leave the first fraction alone
- Turn the division sign into a multiplication sign
- Turn the second fraction over
- Multiply the numerators together
- Multiply the denominators together
Now some would be happy with this and probably remember it after a few times of doing it. On the other hand, my mind is screaming, why? I would be the type of learner that would forget at least one of the important steps because it would make no sense. I would need to know the reasons why and understand it rather than just remember it.
Tailored learning plans to suit individual learners
In Creative in Learning, our tutors are taught both methods of teaching maths. We adjust our teaching to correspond to the way in which the pupil learns.
There is a place for rote learning and although Jo Boaler strongly disagrees with learning tables, we do feel that the knowledge can strengthen a child’s confidence. As a child who was never taught times tables in school, I do feel that it has been a disservice to me. So we have agreed to teach times tables, but we insist it is done in a non threatening way, so will often use games and Squeebles (iPad app) to reinforce multiplication bonds.
