How to prepare students for algebra. National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. How DO We Learn Math? What makes it possible to learn advanced math fairly quickly is that the human brain is capable of learning to follow a given set of rules without understanding them, and apply them in an intelligent and useful fashion.
Given sufficient practice, the brain eventually discovers (or creates) meaning in what began as a meaningless game.— Keith DevlinShould Children Learn Math by Starting with Counting? It seems obvious that our children must have a wide range of experience with real world objects before counting, addition, or subtraction mean anything to them. But are other topics, such as calculus, better learned as abstract rules — as a game that we play with symbols? And what about the topics in the middle? For instance, how best can we break our algebra students of common errors such as distributing the square or canceling out addition terms? To teach effectively, I need to understand how students learn. Do different approaches work best with different concepts? I Learn by Discovery. Math Skills Development. Children know many math concepts through early play. As infants they know that they are small and their mother and father are big even though they do not know the words.
Toddlers know that if they put one block on top of another, they will have two even though they do not know the words. They know that if they have 2 blocks and you have 10, you have more and they want them. Toddlers will often sort objects although we may not know the criteria they are using to form their sets. Very young children know the sequence of their day if there is a schedule to their day. They learn many concepts of number, size, shape, and weight during trips to the grocery store. When they enter preschool, children know many concepts in their own way of knowing. The steps in developing math understanding are: Begining to use and understand the language of math through our correct use of the words through the day. Counting Books can be excellent learning tools, too. Back to Top. Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers.