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.