Comment Re:Philosophy and Debate (Score 1) 434
I definitely agree. In math class, students should be encouraged to explain their thinking, justify their answers. Problems that ask if such-and-such is possible, that ask for finding patterns and such are good.
The teacher can use open-ended problems every once in a while to encourage this even more (I realize the time won't allow this real often).
When students are required to explain instead of just spouting out a number as an answer, that will certainly develop their language skills and help in the English class. I am not sure what the English teacher could do though. Maybe instead of opinion essays include a writing an essay on an investigative math problem.
When real mathematicians submit papers to journals, they obviously must know how to write, how to express their thoughts coherently, put forth logical arguments. So often is this missing in the regular math classroom and students just work with calculations after calculations.
I've tried to incorporate some of this approach to my own elementary math texts.
The teacher can use open-ended problems every once in a while to encourage this even more (I realize the time won't allow this real often).
When students are required to explain instead of just spouting out a number as an answer, that will certainly develop their language skills and help in the English class. I am not sure what the English teacher could do though. Maybe instead of opinion essays include a writing an essay on an investigative math problem.
When real mathematicians submit papers to journals, they obviously must know how to write, how to express their thoughts coherently, put forth logical arguments. So often is this missing in the regular math classroom and students just work with calculations after calculations.
I've tried to incorporate some of this approach to my own elementary math texts.
