Day 1

Today’s first session was interesting I must say. I learned about how children learn mathematics and it was truly exciting. The CPA approach gave me a better understanding on how to teach math to children. I realize that the process of concrete, pictorial and abstract is essential components to know in order to teach math. This gives a math teacher a better idea in knowing how to plan the lesson plan too. In this session today, I also learned that there are many method to do to derive answers to math problem. There is no right or wrong way but it also gives the freedom to explore more in math.

It is very true that a child learning with concrete experiences is way more valuable than anything. With the CPA approach and discussing on how Vygotsky believed in his idea, it further made me to read more about him and his work. In my teaching experience I do believe strongly that children learn way more better with concrete things rather I was very much amazed by the math concept of nominal and ordinal number and what it means. Nominal as in for the name like labels eg – bus numbers and ordinal numbers represents time. I did not know all these and it was interesting Dr Yap was teaching all these new terms of concepts. I was wondering how can I teach the 4 year olds though. I did try and of course they gave me the “Yes are you talking to me, kind of look”. That moment was definitely memorable.

The card trick was pretty interesting activity. I found it quite confusing in the beginning but a few attempts with my group, I was able to comprehend. Well as the saying goes, practice makes perfect applies here.

Day 6

Today was the last session of the module. Since the session was in the morning, I felt more alert and relaxed today. Dr Yeap covered quite a number of things today which included problems, ways to provide instructions to children, what to consider when planning a lesson and how graphs could be used and taught to children.

 

Today is the last session of the module.Dr Yeap started off the session by showing us a video of his Primary 1 class having a Math lesson. It was fun and informative watching him tech the primary level students. I observed how lively and interactive his class was. It gave me a good opportunity to learn a few things that he portrayed as a teacher. He allowed children to visualize better, gave children opportunities to practice what they have learnt and provided differentiated instructions for slow, normal and advanced learners. He also shared that he would show or model first, scaffold, then let children work on their own when teaching concepts (scaffolding, enrichment).

 

The highlight of today was in order to show our appreciation to Dr Yeap, we gave him a jar of cookieswith a problem to solve! It was an interesting way to sum up the whole session! Thought this idea was creative. Of course as a wonderful math teacher as he is, he had to pose back the problem to us and taught us the many ways to solve the math problems!. What an enriching moment.

;)

Thank you Dr Yeap! You are inspring! Keep shining.

 

Valli

Day 5

Today I learned when Dr Yeap told us that it is important to have a variation in the materials we use to teach math concepts to children. These include proportionate and non-proportionate materials. He also mentioned that its better to use proportionate materials for early learners instead of using non-proportionate materials. Therefore, it's better to use natural based things instead of unnatural materials when teaching early learners. Visual learning processes into a child’s brain better than anything. For an instance, when we teach the "pair" concept, utilize things that come in pairs eg: (a pair of socks, a pair of shoes, a pair of gloves), when we teach the "dozen" concept, use things that come in dozens (a dozen of eggs, a dozen of oranges and so forth) and when teaching a bundle of 10 items, use things that come in a bundle of 10 (a bundle of 10 satay sticks or a bundle of 10 straws).
Utilizing all these natural concrete objects most certainly make the learning fun, fruitful and effective.

Today, the problems were really fun to solve! Especially when we work together as a group. Connecting dots! What fun it was! Firstly we had to connect 4 dots to create polygons, which we later used to figure out the area in square units. The next task was we had to put in 5 sequential numbers into 5 grids that were arranged in the form of a cross. The numbers should be placed in such a way that when you add the 3 numbers in horizontal direction and the 3 numbers in vertical direction, it gives the same answer. Wow.... I was like thinking to myself..... I wish I had Dr Yeap as my math teacher long time ago. I would have had a better perception about it and tried to better in maths in my school days.. sigh

Well I have learned a lot from Dr Yeap and am thankful for it.

 

;)

Day 4

Today, we covered on topics like area, division and multiplication. I learned that when teaching division or multiplication, it is advisable to divide the things onto physical objects like boxes, paper plates, cups  and etc rather than doing among children. When children get a better idea about these concepts, we can always attempt to do the division and multiplication using persons, people and so forth.

 I also learned that when we  as teachers teach multiplication or any other concepts to children, it will be great to apply the CPA approach and with this, conduct an enrichment to extend their learning under the same concept. This concrete, pictorial and abstract is a amazing method.  Today's problem sum were quite fun, especially when we were taught tangrams.  In the beginning, I was able to visualize and guess which shapes could be combined in order to get the same area as a bigger shape.  This was very cool. Another interesting learning point Dr Yeap touched on was about assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to responding to a new event in a way that is consistent with an existing schema while accommodation refers to modifying an existing schema or forms an early new schema to deal with a new objet or event.

 

Lastly but not least, I learned a new revelation. We learn about great expertise in child development field. One of the person I truly admire and his work is Jean Piaget. When Dr Yeap shared this information in class was that according to Piaget – NO ONE IS BORN CLEVER. YOU ARE MADE CLEVER. What a powerful line it is. I most certainly shared this motto to all my friends and parents to know this fact is actually a fact. I have already, typed out, bold it huge and made into a huge banner like outside my class for all the parents or any visitors to see. They need to know the TRUTH.   

 

Day 2

Today, I enjoyed my class! I learned a new word "subitise". It means to make a precise estimation of a group of things without counting it.

 

We had two activities today. One was to identify which child bought more bottles and the second game was (my favourite) and was more challenging as we had to guess the number of paperclips in each sealed bottle. I learned that having 3 paperclips as a benchmark allows further challenges to higher level of thinking. As in to say, we can have more paper clips and guess how many are there. It sure was an interesting activity as I saw how my course mates used different techniques to find the answers. It was a good way to learn from each other too. Out of the 5 attempts, I got 3 correct. It was so fun but everyone shaking the bottles of paperclips sure brought a loud noise session in class... ;)

Another fruitful learning I had was about the conceptual understanding which is also known as the relational understanding. Relational understanding is important for children when learning new concepts. It is all about making connections prior to what they know makes it easier for them to comprehend. For that reason, it is essential for teachers to make an attempt to ensure for their prior knowledge and help them to make connections to what they already know.

 

Day 3

 

 

Today's lesson was extremely fruitful and informative. At the beginning I felt apprehensive and unsure about the topics as in word problem sums and fractions. It looks so effortless the way Dr Yeap teaching us but I was like going.... oh dear..fractions?

I have taught bigger kids of Kindergarten 2 word problems. I have learned to make it as simple as possible to get them to have a better understanding. Initially they had a hard time but with consistency and practice, they could do it. Visual teaching made it much easier for kids to grasp the concept rather than anything. I did enjoy the word problem sums and how my other course mates working in a groups coming to create simple word problems. It was interesting.

Coming to fractions, I was totally lost. There were few word problem with fractions. I must say it was like going back to primary school. I dreaded for a moment. But it was interesting and fun to learn as how Dr Yeap taught us. His methods and ideas somehow made sense and I could work on the sums. The folding of paper to equal parts was very tricky. It basically taught me to find out how to check if all the parts are equal. The folding paper activity gave me a clearer picture to understand fractions a little better... well it certainly going to take time for me.

Towards the end of class, we had the quiz! Oh my what a stress! I can sense a sea of uncertainty around my class. I was like breaking in sweats. This is was not good. But as time was clicking, after reading the questions few times I somehow worked out and hope I got it correct!.

What a relieve as in when the quiz was over that is. ;)

 

Day 1

Today’s first session was interesting I must say. I learned about how children learn mathematics and it was truly exciting. The CPA approach gave me a better understanding on how to teach math to children. I realize that the process of concrete, pictorial and abstract is essential components to know in order to teach math. This gives a math teacher a better idea in knowing how to plan the lesson plan too. In this session today, I also learned that there are many method to do to derive answers to math problem. There is no right or wrong way but it also gives the freedom to explore more in math.

It is very true that a child learning with concrete experiences is way more valuable than anything. With the CPA approach and discussing on how Vygotsky believed in his idea, it further made me to read more about him and his work. In my teaching experience I do believe strongly that children learn way more better with concrete things rather I was very much amazed by the math concept of nominal and ordinal number and what it means. Nominal as in for the name like labels eg – bus numbers and ordinal numbers represents time. I did not know all these and it was interesting Dr Yap was teaching all these new terms of concepts. I was wondering how can I teach the 4 year olds though. I did try and of course they gave me the “Yes are you talking to me, kind of look”. That moment was definitely memorable.

The card trick was pretty interesting activity. I found it quite confusing in the beginning but a few attempts with my group, I was able to comprehend. Well as the saying goes, practice makes perfect applies here.