New answers tagged primary-education
4
Clearly there is no historical data that addresses this question
I want to know if there are any numerical bases that are notably
well-suited for humans to learn and use at an elementary or
grade-school level
since we have ten fingers and humans have learned only decimal arithmetic for everyday use.
I just finished four weekly sessions with fifth ...
3
Both of my sons are learning division right now (or rather, just finished the section), one in a public school using Eureka Math (in 4th grade level math), one in a Montessori (in Primary, at 1st grade age).
The public school focused on long division certainly, but (either because of the curriculum, or more likely because of the teacher, as I don't ...
1
Doing a quick google search for "why do students struggle with division?" made me realize myself why long division is difficult for a lot of students. Common reasons claimed include:
The long division algorithm is long. Remembering the steps can be difficult.
The long division algorithm may not be intuitive. We can tell them that it's just "how many groups ...
5
Not a teacher here, but I noticed when my kids went to school there was far less emphasis than I remember on techniques that require above average insight or intuition. I think there's more pressure these days toward making sure most students achieve a predetermined minimum performance, and less on helping high-performing students stretch their capabilities. ...
6
If you are tutoring, it's important to value whatever algorithms work. Your frustration with the (new to me) lovely algorithm you show concerns me. It shows why each step makes sense, which is much better than the form of long division I learned.
"In fact a lot of kids find it [short division] amazing to learn."
If you show an individual a new process at ...
26
It's pretty rare these days for anyone to actually do division by hand. Most people reach for a calculator. Given those realities, I would question whether it even makes sense that we spend such a vast amount of time teaching young children even one algorithm for division. Maybe we should postpone it, deemphasize it, or replace long division with a slower or ...
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