Primary school mathematics education focuses on the training of discovery, induction, deduction and reasoning, which lays the foundation for the research and study of higher education, thus achieving creative thinking and logical thinking.
So, how do Americans cultivate children's logical thinking through elementary mathematics education? Some teachers studying in the United States have analyzed this after experiencing and observing their children's learning activities.
1, guide children to discover from an early age.
Speaking of logic, it seems to be more advanced thinking. In fact, from preschool, American schools have mathematics content about training children's logical thinking ability.
My daughter is 3 years old and attends preschool in America. At the beginning of each month, the school will send me a guide to children's activities at home to train with the children's learning content at school.
This month, my training is mainly math activities. In this math activity, in addition to practicing counting and recognition with children, there is also an exercise called mode.
Details are as follows:
Take out a few pieces of cardboard and draw some geometric figures on each piece of cardboard regularly. For example, draw a triangle and a square on a piece of cardboard in turn, and then draw a triangle and a square repeatedly.
Then ask the child, what should be the next number? Or another more complicated graphic mode: draw a circle, a square and an ellipse on the second card paper in turn, then draw a circle, a square and an ellipse, and then ask the child, what should the next graphic be?
This training mode requires children to observe and discover the arrangement law of figures, which is the initial form of logic training, mainly to cultivate children's observation ability and discovery ability.
2, games-oriented, cultivate children's interest.
Many parents who have just arrived in America are anxious because their children are "doing nothing" at school.
For example, children in kindergartens either wear a plate of beads, doodle or play with a few small shells. Children play all day.
In fact, these seemingly playful activities are rich in wisdom to help children develop their cognitive ability, and naturally they must be combined with the content of mathematical logic training.
Take graffiti coloring as an example. Children can be asked to color a group of triangles arranged in a straight line. The order of colors is "red, yellow, red, yellow, red and yellow".
You can also divide a black-and-white picture into different small pieces with lines, each small piece is marked with a number, and children are required to paint a certain color on a small area of a certain number.
For another example, you can string beads into a regular pattern with children. These exercises with certain regularity all embody the concept of pattern. But the process of children's practice is like playing games, and it is not easy to have pressure.
3. Based on experience and examples, the content is close to life.
In the process of mathematics teaching and practice, there are few questions that directly give numbers and then ask for calculation. The learning content of mathematics is mostly closely related to the specific activities in life.
For example, when understanding the content of time, the topic will be designed as various activities that someone spends time doing in a day; The content involved in learning coins will be shopping with coins, eating out and other scenes; The content involved in the measurement will use measuring tools, so that children can operate and experiment repeatedly.
Exercises involving logical reasoning, of course, are also inseparable from the assumptions of the scene.
For example, there is an exercise: the title gives several pictures. The first picture is a few adzuki beans and a cup full of dirt; In the second picture, the small plants in the cup grow beans, in the third picture, the germ comes out, and in the fourth picture, the seedlings grow in the small cup. Then let the children arrange according to the order of time development.
This topic of cultivating children's sense of order is closely related to the content of life.
4. Weaken calculation and strengthen understanding of mathematical concepts.
Turning over the children's exercise books, it is not difficult to find that the alternative answers are generally only close to the scope of the answers, and students are not required to perform specific addition and subtraction operations.
In the teaching process, teachers are not eager to let students find the answer through calculation, but gradually inspire children to think and let them understand the mathematical concepts and meanings behind each topic. For example, the following question:
There are six integers with an average value of 12. These six numbers are: 16,4,16,4, x,16. Q: What should X be?
Option: a: A:22 B: 16
Of course, students can use the most direct method to calculate:12x6-(16x3+4x2) =16.
American teachers will use objects to guide students to think from the perspective of reasoning. For example, some teachers will instruct students like this: Suppose there are six boxes, and the number of beads in each box is 16,4,16,4, x,16. How to make the number of beads in these six boxes become 12? Through such thinking, we can understand the meaning of the average from a physical point of view.
5. Pay attention to the guidance of reasoning and multi-level thinking.
In the process of teaching, finding answers through calculation is usually not the main content of teaching. Teachers pay more attention to gradually inspire children to think and reason by asking questions. For example, the following question:
Kate and her mother went to the supermarket and bought seven spools. Each yellow spool is 8 meters long and each red spool is 6 meters long. If the sum of the spools they bought is 52 meters, Q: How many yellow spools did they learn? How many red spools?
Binary linear equations like this. Teachers can guide students to do the following reasoning thinking:
1. Is it possible to have as many yellow spools as red spools?
2. Which will have more yellow spools or red spools?
3. How many combinations of the two spools are possible?
4. What is the maximum total length of all spools?
……
In the whole teaching activity, the teacher will spend a class to make various assumptions and enlarge a topic, and constantly guide the children to think and discover. Children are always chatting and discussing, and they also put forward their own questions and ideas from time to time.
Ebouk believes that Chinese and American teaching must have their own advantages and disadvantages. If we can lay a good foundation, make mathematics education closer to life, and make education methods more diverse and interesting, children are likely to love mathematics more.