EDU330 Elementary Mathematics - An Introduction

Welcome!


Watch this video.

Doing Maths involves a Lot of Discussion

We start in August, after the Hari Raya and National Day festivities.

You are expected to read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 and make a blog entry in the form of a note to parents to show that you have understood the readings and have an opinion on the readings. 

The purpose of the note is to help parents understand that mathematics their children learn may not be the same as what they themselves experienced as a child (probably about two decades ago, at least).

The blog entry should not be excessively long (typically fewer than 300 words) and, hopefully, is creative and interesting to read. You can use an existing blog or start a new one. 

Photographs, videos and so on may be used to make a point. Please create a blog for this and daily reflection and send the address of your blog to banhar.yeap@pathlight.org.sg before 12 August 2013. 

Your name should appear on the side bar of www.i-teach-k.blogspot.com once your blog address has been received.

MAT150 Developing Problem-Solving Skills Session 6

Math Trail at Bolles School

Examples of activities that can include problem-solving tasks are maths trail (see photograph), making art project (such as animals) using recycled / reused materials as well as games.

In the photograph, teachers of early grades were engaged in a maths trail task that required them to find the number of cubes needed to fill the empty water fountain.

The slides includes stimulus for problems-solving activities.


Once a teacher had a problem - she did not know which part of the rectangle is referred to as 'length'. Problems are not limited to mathematical ones. In class, we discussed examples of real-life and real-world problems. (in response to her problem, I would say the length of the longer side and the length of the shorter side but when we are lazy we simply say 'length' - longer side - and 'breadth' - shorter side.)

Slide 2 - The use of children's books to design problem-solving activities. we previously discussed The Doorbell Rang. Here a page from The Tortoise and The Hare is used. Can counting be problematic?

Slide 3 - The people who built this vertical garden needed to know how many pots of plants are needed. They had to solve a problem.

Slide 4 - Can this African painting inspire a problem? The scarves come in three colours, so do the blouse and the skirt. Here, we see six different outfits. How different outfits are possible?

Slide 5 - This artefact inspired a patterning problems among some teachers in the class. Can you use this to design a problem for young children?

Slide 6 - An ancient game (British Museum) from Mesopotamia. Is playing a game such as this one problem solving?

Slide 7 - Stone Rosette (British Museum) from 3300 B.C. The making of such rosettes is both an problem as well as an exercise. Explain.

Stimulus for Writing Problem-Solving Tasks from Jimmy Keng

Photographs of the course are available on my Facebook.

MAT150 Developing Problem Solving Skills Session 4

The Doorbell Rang is a story for children that can be used for problem solving.

Children can be asked to figure out how many cookies each child gets. They can also be asked how many children can share the 12 cookies equally. They can also be asked to guess how many cookies on Grandma's tray (like guessing the number of easter eggs in a jar).

MAT150 Developing Problem-Solving Skills Session 1

Photographs of the whiteboard here.

What is Problem Solving? | Tasks that are novel or complex are often problems.
When there is no ready procedure for a person to complete a task, the task is likely to be a problem to the person.