RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MATHEMATICS LEARNING STANDARDS

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MATHEMATICS LEARNING STANDARDS

Following are a list of core recommendations made for the Learning Standards:

1.      It is felt that curriculum should build concepts gradually, continually and in an integrated manner showing the links and patterns underlying different concepts and teachers should ensure to build these links. For instance, as described in ‘Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics’ by Liping Ma, words ‘carry’ and ‘borrow’ can be misguiding and hence it would be appropriate to use the words – ‘regroup’ or even better ‘compose/decompose’. This will help the students use place value in operations.

2.      Students should be taught through practical activity, exploration and discussion.

3.      Teachers should teach the applications of various concepts so that students are able to apply them efficiently and effectively in everyday life. This will also help them develop a positive attitude towards Mathematics as students will feel what they are learning has practical use.

4.      Increased emphasis should be laid on ‘problem solving’ i.e. the children’s ability to tackle problems that are conceptually challenging and which they have not experienced before. Currently it is found that children tend to panic or freeze at the very sight of an unfamiliar problem, and do not even try to understand and tackle it.

5.      Too many tedious calculations like those on fractions, LCM, HCF, roots etc can be avoided so that time can be saved for conceptual understanding and problem-solving.

6.      Students should be exposed to various methods of computation - mental computation, estimation and paper and pencil. They should be explained where each is applicable so that they are able to select appropriate method from among mental computation, estimation and paper and pencil.

7.      The objective of teaching and textbooks should be to ignite a child’s interest and curiosity. We recommend that books should not be too textual. They should rather use pictures and graphs to explain and clarify some concepts (not just to make the appearance attractive).  They should have brain teasers and activities to help reinforce the concepts.