Posts Tagged ‘word problems’
What math teachers should know about memory, 2: working memory
Posted by: Gary Ernest Davis on: April 21, 2011
Mathematics teachers commonly complain that their students do not memorize facts, definitions and formulas. In a previous post I described Hermann Ebbinghaus’s experiments on rote memorization, and his finding that memorization of nonsense syllables decays exponentially. What we teachers of mathematics want is for students to recall, at least for the very next class, what […]
Beginner's mind: seeing the mathematics
Posted by: Gary Ernest Davis on: January 22, 2010
My colleague has a Ph.D. in mathematics and two young children – 9 and 11 years of age. She writes the following account of her children’s engagement with a word problem: Yesterday my 9 year old was struggling with the following problem: “Suzi and Joey had the same amount of money. Then they went shopping. […]
