Fun with Problem Solving!

Wow! The first night of EDU 330 Elementary Mathematics have been great and I have been met with a few surprises myself:

1. The lecturer looks really young despite his years of teaching!
2. I enjoy the lessons more than I had expected.
3. I am NO GOOD in math!

There were many memorable problems that were given to us that I had thought was useful for children to learn how to acquire their problem-solving skills.

Problem #1 - Name

First problem of the day was titled, 'NAME'. What is so special about this problem, you'll asked? Well, it requires your child's name and their ability to rote count. Take for example, my name, CLARE. Which letter will be the 99th letter if I were to start counting my name this way....

C   L  A  R  E

1    2   3   4  5

9    8   7   6

     10  11  12  13

17  16  15  14       so on and so forth.....

A sample look of the various methods used in class.... 

The answer does not matter, but the different methods of how your child derived the answers other than using the traditional method of counting all the way to 99. You can try it yourself too and see what are the different strategies that you can come up with! 

Problem #2 - Card Trick

Another memorable problem that we were given was the 'Card Trick'. I'm still in awed at how this came about and never mind the fact that Dr Yeap seem to win the women over with his 'magic' trick! I showed my 9-year-old the trick and her mouth was wide open throughout! Imagine what you can do in class with your students too!

The method my team used was 'trial and error'. This card trick not only teach numbers, but the spelling of the numbers. I'm not going to reveal the answers of how you are supposed to arrange the cards BUT, I will gladly show you the video of what I meant! You can even try this trick using shapes!

First video demo by Dr Yeap

Second demo by our very beautiful Shirley

To end it off, Dr Yeap mentioned that what your elders used to say, "Practice makes perfect" but if you are not practicing the right thing, you are practicing the wrong thing perfectly, So, in other words, "I have been to a clinic many times, does that make me a doctor?"

This is so true, hence parents, help your child by ensuring that they understand Mathematics using the one of the learning theory from Dienes

Play - let your children explore with Mathematics through play where they derive their own knowledge, thinking skills. 

Only through their own explorations, will they be able to make sense of what they are learning. Sharing and discussing their ideas with their peers or with an adult enable them to see that there are many methods to solve a problem. Solving a problem means that the way that you obtain your answers must be explainable and make logical sense!

Have a great day!