It would be hard to find a lovelier and more succinct description of the pervasiveness of maths and mathematical concepts than this nugget from Jo Boaler, Marie Curie professor of mathematics education at the University of Sussex, in a recent Scotsman opinion piece:
Maths exists in the petals of flowers, the rhythms of raindrops and the social networks that connect us; it is at the core of scientific and medical breakthroughs and it is a diverse and varied subject.
Read on for some great tips from an expert on how to play to a child’s strengths in maths, and encourage him or her to get the most out of the subject.
Here are Jo Boaler’s tips, summarised for your condensed enjoyment. Read the article to get the details:
• Everyone can be good at maths – lose the negative attitude!;
• Maths puzzles and games are vital;
• Parents and children should talk about maths;
• Numbers are more flexible than you think;
• Find encouragement in mistakes that contain nuggets of good maths;
• Explore maths in the wider world;
• Encourage problem-solving, the idea that any problem can be broken down;
• Talk to your child’s teacher or maths co-ordinator and support their problem-solving approaches to maths tuition.
Jo Boaler’s article gives an impassioned case for the idea of maths as discovery – allowing the child to see patterns and features of numbers and their expressions in nature – without the burden of standard maths teaching methods. This method is described, generally condescendingly, as reform math in the still-lively debate over teaching methods in the US.
Ms Boaler points to the disconnect between school children’s perceptions of maths and experts’ experiences:
Ask mathematicians what mathematics is and they will generally tell you it is the study and exploration of patterns. Ask schoolchildren what mathematics is and they will usually tell you it is a vast collection of rules that have to be remembered.
Of course, it’s one thing to point out that university mathematicians see the patterns and science behind maths, and quite another to generate that level of understanding amongst nine-year-olds, but if the child never grasps those underlying patterns, he or she will never become a university mathematician.
‘Traditionalists’ (whatever they are) would argue that some can only be taught with repetitive methods (mockingly described as ‘drill and kill’), but Jo Boaler’s thesis is one we would agree with. If you condemn a child to understand maths only in terms of rules to be recalled and numbers to be parroted out he or she may never get the chance to peek at the patterns behind it all.
Different mathematical methods tend to suit different minds, but that doesn’t mean that curricula should play to the lowest common denominator, assuming that students can cope with no creative engagement with the subject.
The best maths teaching method is surely one that allows different approaches to the same problem, but that still requires factual rigour. It is a mistake to think that discovery-led learning produces sloppy results. It is the sloppy teacher who leads the child to think that accuracy is subordinate to good intention.
Maths-Whizz is a service that splits the difference between the learning-through-repetition and the learning-through-discovery approaches. Our students are not all alike – some prefer to treat maths problems as stories to be broken down, whilst others prefer their maths in cut-and-dried test questions.
Maths-Whizz accounts for all tastes and, we’d hope, helps parents and teachers get the most out of their young mathematicians in the process. We have maths games in the Whizz Shop; reports to encourage dialogue between teachers, parents and children; help sections that build confidence rather than crush it; assessment modes that teach to ability, not age; and diversity of mathematical approaches. We’d like to think Jo Boaler would approve.