Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Playing Maths: "It is Half... No, it is 1 Upon 6... No, it is Half... No,it is...."

Few days back, I was assessing a bunch of 6th & 7th class students in a school – asking them some practical questions (in a friendly way) to gauge their conceptual understanding.  Having done this exercise with a host of schools across the spectrum, I have a decent amount of variety of responses of students by now. And I am so thrilled by the quality of learning that happens by analyzing this type of first-hand experiences that now I wish, some day, to systematically compile and publish/post it in a form such that it would be accessible/useful to all the interested learners. I don’t know when this will happen, but I do share and seek observations while interacting with the schools/teachers/parents during the workshops/study-circles.  And then, a thought crossed my mind as to why not, meanwhile, share this information in our group? 

So here I go –   (while waiting for your observations/ comments/ views) -

The student is shown the following pieces spread on one of the desks.




​​After giving her around a minute to play with these pieces on her own, I drew her attention to the full circular piece. 




​​“What shape is this?”

“Circle”

“Hmm.... Do you eat something of this shape at home?”

“Yes... Chapati...papad”

“Right! So let’s say this is your one-full chapatti”, while handing over that piece to her.

Now I take another piece in my hand and ask her,” So how much chapati would this be?”

“Half” (super fast response!)

“Ok. Can you write ‘half’ using numerals?” 

She writes: 1/2

“Good. Is there any other way of reading this notation?”

“One upon two.”

“OK.” I replace this piece with another and continue “Ok. So what about this piece then?”

​​​

She compared it with Half and said, “It’s one upon four”

 “Ok. Let’s write this using numerals?”

She writes:  1/4

“And why this ’4’?”