I came across this very interesting article in The Hindu about a teacher's experience of teaching mathematics his students through stories.Read here.
I am reminded of my own experience of teaching mathematics - simple sums to my children when they were in primary school. The most vivid memory concerns a problem related to train - since they were fascinated by trains and train journeys. Most often these problems would be offered when we were travelling on a long journey (which can often result in boredom, if not for some interesting games and quizzes and problem solving) or when waiting for my wife to finish her shopping or waiting for her to finish with her work and come out of the bank.
The problem would often consist of two trains one starting from Bangalore and going towards Chennai, and the other starting from Chennai and going towards Bangalore. To make it simple, I would tell them that both trains have the same speed - average speed being 80 kmph (unrealistic, I know...but what's the harm in telling them that Indians trains travel fast!). I would ask them to assume the distance between the two cities to be 400 kms (again helping them by rounding off). Then my question would be "where would the two trains cross over?". I would listen with interest at the discussion that would ensue and the verbal jousting that would accompany - each kid trying to assert that his method was correct and would get to the right answer in the best way. After much noise and no result, I would intervene and give them some hints. I would be a proud parent when I saw them come to the solution quickly. Then to make the problem a bit more difficult, I would change the speeds of one of the trains or say that one train had some problem and had halted at Arakkonam for 30 minutes extra. So now find where the two trains crossed over. The solution was secondary, more importantly, I would be interested in how they approached the problem.
By linking problem solving skills with some "story" or incident or a product in which they were interested, I would be able to kindle their interest towards problem solving.
I do practice these same methods in my training program too!
I am reminded of my own experience of teaching mathematics - simple sums to my children when they were in primary school. The most vivid memory concerns a problem related to train - since they were fascinated by trains and train journeys. Most often these problems would be offered when we were travelling on a long journey (which can often result in boredom, if not for some interesting games and quizzes and problem solving) or when waiting for my wife to finish her shopping or waiting for her to finish with her work and come out of the bank.
The problem would often consist of two trains one starting from Bangalore and going towards Chennai, and the other starting from Chennai and going towards Bangalore. To make it simple, I would tell them that both trains have the same speed - average speed being 80 kmph (unrealistic, I know...but what's the harm in telling them that Indians trains travel fast!). I would ask them to assume the distance between the two cities to be 400 kms (again helping them by rounding off). Then my question would be "where would the two trains cross over?". I would listen with interest at the discussion that would ensue and the verbal jousting that would accompany - each kid trying to assert that his method was correct and would get to the right answer in the best way. After much noise and no result, I would intervene and give them some hints. I would be a proud parent when I saw them come to the solution quickly. Then to make the problem a bit more difficult, I would change the speeds of one of the trains or say that one train had some problem and had halted at Arakkonam for 30 minutes extra. So now find where the two trains crossed over. The solution was secondary, more importantly, I would be interested in how they approached the problem.
By linking problem solving skills with some "story" or incident or a product in which they were interested, I would be able to kindle their interest towards problem solving.
I do practice these same methods in my training program too!
