Re: [xmca] comognition some more

[Ng Foo Keong <lefouque@gmail.com>]

not sure what was going on in her mind.  as an educator, if i had to choose
between efficiency and understanding, i would prefer understanding.  you
can get Microsoft Excel or perhaps a Cray to do the calculation if you really
want efficency.

if she was trying to figure out on her own 10 - 7 = 3 as another way of
saying 3 + 7 = 10, then i'd say that's good news, because personal
agency in learning interconnections and relationships is what maths learning
is really about, IMHO.

regards,
F.K.


2009/5/24 Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>:
> Another example of a struggling kid and how the strugggles manifest
> themselves in talk and action.
>
> They were the same as the problems I had helped her with the week before. I
> asked her if she remembered how we added the two easy numbers together and
> then added the third umber to that answer. She nodded yes and so that’s what
> we did for all the problems. For example, if the problem was 3 + 3 + 7 we
> added 3 + 3 first, which is six and then added the 7 to six, to get the
> final answer. One thing I noticed, which I noticed before, is that A seems
> to subtract a lot of times instead of add. So if I ask her what 7 + 3 is she
> blurts out 4 really fast and then says, “no…” (Counts on her fingers) and
> then says 10. I’m not sure why she wants to subtract but this seems to slow
> her down a lot because she has to really think it through.
>
> Again, ability presupposed by school and teacher are absent.
> mike
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca