Fractions, Multiplications and Geometry

Lesson on Fractions, multiplications and geometry had me stumped today. I did not know that there were so many methods in learning multiplications and something new that I learnt today made me wondered whether I had taught my child the right way.

"Learning the times tables by heart restricts your child from understanding the number pattern and their exploration in learning Math." 

Somehow, after hearing that statement, it made me feel like I have been a DICTATOR in teaching and guiding children in Math as that was what I had learnt when I was a child. Hence, I posed a question to Dr Yeap,

"If the child has a teacher who allows him/her to explore with the concepts of Mathematics just like how he is doing with us in class, and in the next year, he/she gets a teacher that sticks to the old traditional method of teaching, how then, can we help the child?"

Points taken from Dr Yeap answers:
Teachers these days have been trained with a certain guidelines of how to teach children Math and they also have ongoing professional development to help them observe other teachers teach (teachers being in position of students)

However, there are 3 factors that might hinder this ~
1. Training
2. Previous learning - being exposed to not very good models of learning
3. Ethical - teachers taking a short cut in teaching or doing it the right way

To sum it off, it is very hard for a parent to judge if the teacher is teaching math the right way or not. But on a whole, I guess we can only have faith and trust that the Singapore school system has sufficient quality checks and ongoing professional development for these teachers to ensure standards and the right teaching methods are in place.


To end, I have found two interesting videos on how to teach children multiplications of 2 and 8

as well as how to use a geoboard to teach various concepts. 

Have a great day!