Hello, I started this blog just to share my opinion on my research study on teachers' implications on drill and practice in a classroom in the areas of Mental Computation.
Teachers tend to use drill and practice when teaching mental computation so as to save their time and also in their mindset to make pupils to be able to remember or mentally compute numbers. This practice is a norm for them to use on their pupils to be able to learn everything as teachers struggle to finish with their syllabus and revision before PSR Examination. But questions arise about teachers' theoretical knowledge on what is drill and practice? And to what effect their method of drill and practice has on their pupils?
Thompson (1999a) summarises earlier literature to give four reasons for teaching mental calculation :
1. Most calculations in adult life are done mentally
2. Mental work develops insight into the number system (‘number sense’)
3. Mental work develops problem solving skills
4. Mental work promotes success in later written calculations
Yet it is possible to imagine pupils being not able to calculate quite quickly and doing well on tests in mental calculation, without developing the abilities that would bring enhancements to other number work, improved problem solving, better ‘number sense’ and competence as adults.
Research on mental computation has proposed specific connections among mental computation and aspects of number sense, in particular, number facts knowledge and estimation (Heirdsfield, 1996; Sowder, 1992)
Teachers tend to use drill and practice when teaching mental computation so as to save their time and also in their mindset to make pupils to be able to remember or mentally compute numbers. This practice is a norm for them to use on their pupils to be able to learn everything as teachers struggle to finish with their syllabus and revision before PSR Examination. But questions arise about teachers' theoretical knowledge on what is drill and practice? And to what effect their method of drill and practice has on their pupils?
Thompson (1999a) summarises earlier literature to give four reasons for teaching mental calculation :
1. Most calculations in adult life are done mentally
2. Mental work develops insight into the number system (‘number sense’)
3. Mental work develops problem solving skills
4. Mental work promotes success in later written calculations
Yet it is possible to imagine pupils being not able to calculate quite quickly and doing well on tests in mental calculation, without developing the abilities that would bring enhancements to other number work, improved problem solving, better ‘number sense’ and competence as adults.
Research on mental computation has proposed specific connections among mental computation and aspects of number sense, in particular, number facts knowledge and estimation (Heirdsfield, 1996; Sowder, 1992)
No comments:
Post a Comment