Throw away Procedures, Welcome Exploration!

Mathematics teaching in the United States remains largely unchanged over decades with students following a set of "step-by-step" procedures that require rote memorization of formulas. "Mastery" of a mathematical concept is defined as the student's ability to imitate those formulas taught by the teacher.

Learning shouldn't be about copying steps. Computers can do that for us already.

Students with strong numeracy skills may claim that they "like" and are "good at" math, because they seldom make errors in computation.

However, are they truly being challenged to think critically about a problem?

In addition, students who claim to be uncomfortable with numbers commonly make mistakes in the computation process. They feel left behind with a sense of "I'm not good at math," simply because they didn't follow the exact steps.

However, it would be much more powerful and thought-provoking for students to discover their own method, their own formula rather than practicing a given formula.

Math teachers can use this opportunity to change their class into a time of exploration and mathematical discoveries!

Read my next post to learn how you can implement some strategies!