Explain this
Mathematical Misconceptions
How the publisher describes it:
“How do children relate to numbers and mathematics? How can they be helped to understand and make sense of them? People are rarely ambivalent towards mathematics, having either a love or hate relationship with the subject, and our approach to it is influenced by a variety of factors. How we are taught mathematics as children plays a big role in our feelings towards it. Numbers play a large part in our lives, and it is therefore beneficial to inspire a positive attitude towards them at a young age.”
Review by Peter Hall
In brief:
This is clearly aimed at primary teachers but I’m sure that secondary teachers would benefit hugely from this as well. I’m sure this would be a good read for PGCE students at all levels. I’m going to try using parts of it during department meetings this term, I’m sure it will prompt useful and interesting discussions.
“Encouraging me to take the time to think about my own practice”
As a secondary mathematics teacher I am always interested to learn more about my students’ prior experiences — I suspect I know very little about primary mathematics and would probably be a better teacher at secondary level if I understood primary a little more. This book is a really interesting and useful volume. It exposes many misconceptions that primary students have about mathematics — an essential guide for their teachers, but I also suspect an essential guide for secondary teachers to understand their students a little more.
The book is divided into seven chapters, starting with zero and moving to more everyday numbers towards the end. Here are some of my favourite misconceptions from the first chapter.
- Writing one hundred and one as 1001.
- Children who learn to count from one to ten don’t realise that ten is the beginning of place value — perhaps we should start counting from one to nine and add ten later...
- Is the digit 0 worth more in 105 than 150? Joey replied that it was worth more in 105 because it is in the tens column.
- A longer discussion is given to teaching zero — whether you should start counting with empty hands and fold fingers in (but then do empty hands look like they contain 10 fingers?) or to start with zero as closed fists and unfold to count.
Each chapter has many questions, helpfully highlighted in boxes, so that the reader has the opportunity to pause and reflect. For me these questions turn this book from being good to excellent. Encouraging me to take the time to think about my own practice helps this book ask difficult but interesting questions.
This is clearly aimed at primary teachers but I’m sure that secondary teachers would benefit hugely from this as well. I’m sure this would be a good read for PGCE students at all levels. I’m going to try using parts of it during department meetings this term, I’m sure it will prompt useful and interesting discussions.
Peter Hall • AST Mathematics, Imberhorne School, East Grinstead
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd (19 Nov 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 184787441X
ISBN-13: 978-1847874412
Product Dimensions: 24 x 16.6 x 1.2 cm
