a. INTRODUCTION
Describe the approach/strategy used.
b. DEVELOPMENT
What were the challenges encountered during implementation?
What were the tactics employed to resolve the difficulties met?
What further improvements can be suggested?
c. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
What new insights/discoveries have I made in relation to my role as a teacher?
How will I make use of this new knowledge in future?
What further information or knowledge should I seek to expand my knowledge in relation to this context?
Problem Solving Heuristics
ReplyDeleteProblem solving heuristics has been introduce extensively in PYSS since 2008. How has it evolved? How is the status of problem solving heuristics in PYSS now?
Personally for me, I believed that it is still being adopted and used by math teachers in their teaching currently but not as extensive as it was in 2008. Based on my conversation with math teachers, common feedback given was that not all math topics require the use of heuristics for example algebra. Thus, its use was limited to specific topics. Therefore, should we indicate the topics where heuristics need to be used extensively in the SIOs so that teachers are more aware then?
Secondly, we have quite a number of new math staff and many of them are not comfortable teaching heuristics to their students as they lack the expertise and experience in managing these types of problems.
Polya's 4 step to problem solving framework promotes the use of heuristics in solving maths problems. Since our dept adopted this framework in the teaching of mathematics, the competency of teachers in heuristics is critical in ensuring that the teaching and learning of mathematics in PYSS is successful.
I have just read an interesting math article that I believe is worth sharing with all maths teachers.
ReplyDeleteA teacher in US shared on how he link biology in the teaching of mathematics. What he did was that he made use of experimental data on body heat of dogs to teach students the concept of similar figures and in this case the formula V1/V2 = (L1/L2)^3. Teaching concepts of similar figure can be quite dry and this teacher has found a unique and interesting way of making learning of similar figures interesting and alive. Fantastic.
Well not only did he use the body heat of dogs, he extent his lesson further by providing students with investigative maths task where his students are required to calculate the size of giants during era of Hercules.....and the best thing was that, these giants were real!!
Malek