Making Math Come Alive — Classroom Experiences
One of the common protests you hear as a teacher, or indeed a parent, is “Why should I learn Math, I don’t want to become an engineer?” or “I am going to be a chef, I don’t need Math”.
When faced with this challenge we could resort to that old favorite “Because I told you to” or we could go the extra step to show the child that Math is indeed all around them. We took the latter approach in my Math class and you can too.
I had the pleasure of being the Math teacher to a class of 30 9th graders. I suppose I should not have been surprised that they were asking me such questions. I had taught them to always question things until they understand them.
Surprise or not, “I don’t need math” was still a problem I had to solve. Luckily the way to solve these problems lay in the challenge being posed to me.
“You want to be a chef, ok, as a chef here is a recipe for soup. It serves 4 but you want to make it to your restaurant to serve 50, how would you do it?”
I had to follow their interests and show them how math was required in problems they solved. Soon I was rewriting the word problems, we called them math stories.
Once I had their interest, the rest was easy, they stayed engaged and worked through the drills because they knew that what I was asking of them wasn’t unreasonable but would help them achieve their dreams.
Once you get into the swing of it, it is easy and you don’t have to do this for all problems. Show your child a few and he will understand that math is not an inconvenience but an enabler for his ambitions.
Have you tried this out with your child? If yes, please share your experience in the comment section.
I am glad to tell you that it was just a start.
Since last one year, we have focused to design and revolutionize the math learning path into a math app — Immerz. Check it out on the Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ink.immerz.math&hl=en_IN
If you believe in the idea of making math come alive for the children/students, please support our IndieGoGo Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/immerz-help-your-child-fall-in-love-with-math/
