Math Help

Math Help


English is my second language, but i have a BA already from a well known university here in California. I recently am thinking in continuing my education. I want to become a math teacher; i prefer to teach at college level, because i want to teach either at night or on Saturdays. But if you also have information on teaching math at High school level, that will also help. Please advise if you have any knowledge. Your answers are greatly appreciated.

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English is my second language, but i have a BA already from a well known university here in California. I recently am thinking in continuing my education. I want to become a math teacher; i prefer to teach at college level, because i want to teach either at night or on Saturdays. But if you also have information on teaching math at High school level, that will also help. Please advise if you have any knowledge. Your answers are greatly appreciated. I placed my question under “teaching” and got no replies. No retired teachers at home?

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My town has just announced that they are adopting “everyday math,” a controversial new approach to teaching math. I have found countless arguments against this, and lots of negative anecdotal evidence, but I am having trouble finding anything to support it (other than a few studies posted on the website of the people who designed the program)

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I am a new teacher, and would like to find power point presentations for my math students?

I would need anything from fractions, powers, algebra, geometry,etc.

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Remember struggling through math class? Remember learning fractions? For most people it was not a happy experience. For new teachers, facing a room of young faces, teaching math can be intimidating. The first step is to set aside any emotional reactions based on your experiences, and approach it fresh, with an open mind. Perhaps more than other subjects there are a huge number or misconceptions about teaching math and hopefully this article will dispel ‘myths about math.’ Lets look at a few: 1. Math ability is inherited. Perhaps this comes from our “genius parents produce genius children” myth, which has absolutely no basis. Confidence is very important for math just like anything else. Most students that apply themselves, are reasonable confident and with average intelligence do well in math. 2. You don’t need to study for math. Somehow math is different! Really! Wouldn’t that be nice! Unfortuneatly, here in the real world, math is just like any other subject and requires study and practice. 3. Boys are better mathematicians than girls. This is pure gender-based stereotyping, which has no basis. 4. If you don’t know how to solve a problem after you read it, you probably can’t solve it. Solving math problems is just like solving any type of problem. It is a process where different approachs must be tried and intuition and creativity play a part. When you learn how to swim, you start at the shallow end of the pool. 5. Logic is needed for math and intuition is not needed. Intuition is one of the most important aspect of problem solving. Everyone has intuition, we just haven’t learned to use or trust it. 6. Logic is needed for math not creativity. It requires imagination, intellect, intuition, and aesthetic about the rightness of things. 7. There is one right way to get the right answer. Math problems can be solved in a variety of ways. There is no best way. 8. Counting on your fingers is bad. Counting on fingers shows an understanding of arithmetic, rather than memorized.

Learning math is more important than ever in today’s technologically advancing world. Technology requires that we solve more difficult and complex problems all the time. Thinking clearly about math yourself is the first step in teaching children to also thinking clearly about math.



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nd a good math tutor?

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Frank Ho, Amanda Yang

Ho Math and Chess Learning Centre

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BC certified Teacher

Vancouver, BC, Canada

www.mathandchess.com

After teaching and tutoring math for over 15 years, my own experience shows that it is important to realize that after 4 hours of instruction and if the students show no sign of improvement then it is time to consider changing your tutor. With the above in mind, the most important ingredient to improve math is still that the child has to have a mind of wanting to be a good student. If this pre-condition does not exist then all tutoring efforts must be discounted.

A practical way to find if your math tutor is good is perhaps by comparison, have the child to go through a few tutors and then the child will know which is better one. This one of the reasons that Ho Math and Chess Learning Center offers free lesson.

A good tutor is not working just for money. He must be genuinely interested in teaching. Personally, I found out my enjoyment of teaching comes from the team efforts that is my students and I have actually formed a good team – not only my students learned math from me they also provided me with good feedback. Many of our workbooks were produced because I have discovered the gap in their understanding.

Many tutors taught fraction by firstly dividing pies and have students draw pie charts but where is fraction coming from? If we can get students to understand the source of fraction then students will understand better. It is also interesting for me to discover how Chinese look at fraction by saying it from bottom up and North America teaches fraction by naming fraction from top to down. Because of this discovery, I teach children by explaining fraction in 2 ways. For example, means one half but in Chinese, they say “taking one part out of 2 parts”.

A good tutor not only teaches well, but also interested in doing research. If the tutor is really interested in teaching math then most likely the interest will carry on to research this is the reason Ho Math and Chess has produced over 25 innovative workbooks – many of them are world’s first and one-of-a-kind.

A good tutor not only teaches but also knows what method or algorithm really can help children get high math marks. The following example was taught by one tutor and that tutor asked the student to convert all denominators to be the same and then add all numerators. Is there a better way to do it?

It is easier if one would just use the special nature of dividing decimals by 10’s, 100’s or 1000’s without doing any division.

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Lots of parents feel that the math at grades 1, 2, or 3 is “nothing” in such a way that really nothing to be learned other than the basic computation. Personally I totally believe that it is important for children at young age to build a solid foundation for basic computation skills, but it is equally important to have built problem-solving skills or thinking skills at young age.

A good tutor is very patient to listen to children and watch how they react after a brief lecture, a parrot style teaching is not a good sign of teaching. I have noticed that some tutors will spend entire hour on non-stop talking. Instead, I rather teach for a short time and watch my students’ reaction. I am always interested in finding out why my students could not work out the solution.

To follow student’s thoughts and trace their problems is very important. How can one be a good teacher if he does not even know why students could not get the right answers? I am interested in going over student’s hand written notes to get into their thoughts and find out what are the problems.

A good tutor is interested in finding out what procedure is good and what is not. For example, there are many ways of getting factors for a trinomial but there is only one method the student needs to master and be good at, so the math teacher or tutor needs to be flexible to allow students to have their method to get the correct answer even if it means the methods is a bit slower.

A good tutor needs patience. What would you do if the tutored child is your own child and your are a math tutor? The same treatment must be applied to the tutor’s students as if the student were tutor’s own children. I was at shock when I discovered that one tutor would insist her own son to do some open problem solving questions but just ignore all those questions when teach other children since they are time consuming to mark and explain. A tutor without heart will not be a good tutor.



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The importance of basic math skills cannot be stressed enough. The ability of your child to be quick and smart with math can actually dictate the level to which he can pursue education and also the extent to which he will excel in the real world. Many children seem to dread math and science and it is being mentioned these days that American kids are falling behind in these faculties as compared to the rest of the world. This may create issue with economy and may turn the tables.

Since we obviously do not want that, there is a special attention being given to the development of teaching aids for math. Even though the schools teach basic math skills in a certain way, the manner in which it is done varies across schools. Also you cannot be sure of the process that is adopted. If the school uses boring techniques that do not involve the student, chances are that he will grow up disliking the subject and therefore, shirk from any kind of math.

As a parent, you have the responsibility of ensuring that your child learns basic math skills and that the experience should be a pleasant one. For instance, while teaching to count, you could use specific items like pennies or fruit loops. To introduce the concept of subtraction, you could ask your child to eat two and then ask how many he thinks are left. This can be much more fun than repeating one to ten a number of times without really appreciating what they mean.

Cooking and baking can be a practical way in which you can learn measurements and conversions. The idea is to demonstrate how math can work rather then expect your child to just cram the formulas. Geometry can be taught using rods and physical models.

There are also home schooled children that need to learn basic math skills at home and for parents who find that difficult, there are websites that can help you that. These have step-by-step instructions on how to use the site and also have lessons and quizzes to help in evaluating your skills. And then there is the library where you can find many books on how to tech basic math skills to your child. You could also check out the local bookstore to get the latest new versions of these books.

There are other things that can help you in augmenting the math skills of your child. Music is known to be a great for development of the math skills. Dancing and singing can stimulate the brain.



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Although it is indeed difficult to overcome a math problem, there are many remedies that can be used to help students succeed. Before getting to any specific math instruction, however, you should work at overcoming any math anxiety the student may have. This is a real problem. The students who are poor at math have a real fear of it. Reading can cause anxiety in children, but math anxiety seems to take over their entire world, and when doing math, fear is their major emotion. It is first important to work on this fear by taking the pressure away. So what if you fail a test? The world won’t end. Look, you’re doing great on multiplication, etc. Praise, praise, praise when the student does something right. Patience is important as well. After working on the anxiety aspect, move on to specific skills that help the student succeed.

First, find out the student’s ability level, regardless of grade level. Start instruction and practice at that level. Even if the student is in the 6th grade and is performing math at a 2nd grade level, it is vitally important to start at the 2nd grade level. Math is sequential, and one building block must be in place before the next one is put down. Next, work on visual processing skills and eye/hand coordination. This helps the student place and align problems on the paper properly so that the correct answer can be attained. One of the biggest problems found in students is the inability to line up math problems. It is as though the red margin line on the left doesn’t even exist to them! Keeping columns lined up neatly for proper computation is another problem, and both can be remedied easily enough. Spatial and perceptual skills training helps in this area.

You should start a math tutoring session with activity using brain integration activities with numbers. If the student is weak in visual memory (and usually these kids are), spend time on visual memory and recall activities. These activities help the brain cross over to the left hemisphere, since math is a left hemisphere activity.

Finally, when doing actual math instruction, it is recommended that you do the following activities to ensure for math success:

1. Use blank paper with no lines – this eliminates distractions on the student’s part. Lines and other markings on paper will take the student’s eyes to places other than math, and this is not good.

2. Model the process step by step very slowly in color on the blank paper. Show the student what to do using a different color for every step of the process. When you change steps, you change color. This helps the student “switch gears” while doing the multi-step processes.

3. After showing the student what to do, have the student practice the math problem. Once again, the student will be using color to do the steps, using a different color for each step.

4. Have the student practice several times in color on the blank paper. If the student makes a mistake, simply redirect him and have him keep practicing. Praise any correct steps. You may need to show the student the correct step several times. Be sure you have the student practice immediately after the steps are modeled.

5. Have the student verbalize the steps as he writes them. Telling you the process will help him remember it.

6. Give the student immediate feedback. Don’t wait for the next day to tell him what he did wrong or right.

7. Only work on one small skill at a time. You don’t want to show the student how to do all fractions in one day. Start with adding and subtracting fractions with a like denominator.



Other tools to help students succeed in math are:

1. The card game Blink or the card game Speed. Both help the student process more than one thing at a time.

2. Writing and practicing math facts in some kind of a gooey substance or a substance with texture, such as sand.

3. Visual memory games. The student is shown a series of shapes, numbers, or figures for a few seconds. They are then taken away and the student copies them on paper from memory.

Math is difficult for a student who is right brain dominant. You can help these students access the left hemisphere of the brain so that math success can be met.



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The Effect of Math and Chess Integrated Instruction on Math Scores

 

John BUKY, Education Consultant

Frank HO, Canada certified math teacher

 

 The Chess Academy, Chicago, USA, June 2008

 

Research studies have shown that chess can be used as an effective game-based teaching method. However, all the past studies used chess as a separate instructional tool. There were no math contents in chess instruction provided and there was no math and chess integrated workbook used. This study examined the effect on pupils’ math scores when a truly integrated math and chess workbook was used as an instructional practice workbook. The results show that the integrated math and chess workbook significantly increased pupils’ math scores between pre-tests and post-tests among grade 1 to grade 8 pupils.

 

Key Words: math and chess; math and chess instruction, math and chess integrated workbook; math and chess integrated workbook; mathematics scores of the students

 

Introduction

 

Research papers have demonstrated that chess instruction improves analytical reasoning, problem solving skills, and academic achievement (Chrisiaen & Verholfstadt (1978); Frank & D’Hondt (1979); Smith & Cage (2000)). Research conducted by Gaudreau (1992) shows no significant differences among the groups on basic calculations. These research studies point to the direction that chess has strong effect on improving children’s cognitive ability than their arithmetic computation ability. By teaching math and chess as two separate subjects, children do not have opportunities to work on basic arithmetic operations using acquired chess knowledge, this may explain why by playing chess, it may not statistically significant improve children’s basic arithmetic computation ability.

 

How to maximize the benefits of chess instruction in such a way that not only chess benefits children’s cognitive development, but also their computation ability? All the past chess instruction research studies have used chess instruction as an independent teaching tool and it is not truly integrated with math instruction. The author Frank Ho created a math and chess integrated workbook. The theoretical basis of how math and chess are integrated has been published by Ho (2006). We believe that with the creation of truly integrated math and chess workbooks, pupils will be able to increase their computation ability by working on these math and chess integrated workbooks. This is particularly important for those children who have no interest in playing chess, but they could still get benefit of chess instruction by working on math and chess integrated workbooks.

 

No research has been done before on the effects of using math and chess integrated workbook, this study will compare the effect of pupils’ math computation ability before using the math and chess integrated workbook and after using it to see if there is a significant difference.

 

Method

 

One hundred and nineteen pupils, in grade 1 to grade 8, from five public elementary schools in Chicago, Illinois, USA, participated in the after-school program for 120 minutes, twice a week, for a total of 60 hours of instruction. None of the students has possessed any substantial knowledge in chess. The study began by administering pre-tests in the first week of this study at the beginning of the program on 10/23/06 and a post-test was conducted at the end of the program on 3/28/07. Tests of TONF (The Compass Learning Explorer Online Diagnostic Tool was used for both the pre-test and post-test. The Compass Learning Explorer Assessment meets the requirements as a true valid and reliable criterion-referenced assessment tool.) were given to all pupils for both tests. Each lesson consisted of lecturing, practice on math and chess integrated worksheets and chess playing.

 

Results

 

Paired t test was used to analyze the data. The results of this study shows significantly different on their math scores for all grade 1 to grade 8 pupils between pre-test and post-test at level of p is less than 0.01.

 

Group

Group One

Group Two

Mean

36.46

55.45

SD

15.82

19.37

SEM

1.45

1.78

N

119

119

                        t = 12.8729

 

Discussion

 

The results of this study demonstrate that a truly integrated math and chess workbook can help significantly improve pupil’s math scores. Our observations show that the effect of using a truly integrated math and chess workbook also provides mental entertainment and thought by pupils as more fun than traditional computation practices. Pupils were able to sit longer when working on math and chess integrated workbook than working on traditional computation worksheets.

 

The result of this research is particularly interesting for children who do not have a high interest in playing chess since the math and chess integrated workbook involves visualization, analyzing, spatial relation and data processing, these types of problems provide high order cognitive skills. Without spending substantial time on playing chess, we believe that children can get the similar benefits of playing chess on cognitive effects by working on math and chess integrated workbooks. This may require further study.

 

Why children like to work on math and chess integrated workbook than on the traditional computation worksheets? Math and chess integrated work has visual images, chess symbols, directions, spatial relation, and tables; all these are stimuli to kids and keep their interests high while working on computation problems. This also gives children ample opportunities to think visually. Most of the time, the computation questions themselves are not written for children to work on immediately but for children to ”create” themselves and these questions have to be actually “mapped” out by following directions and children love them. Children learn best while having fun.

 

References

 

Chrisiaen & Verholfstadt, (1978) “Chess and cognitive development”, Nederlandse Tydschrift voor de Psychology en haar Grensbebieden 36, 561-582.

 

Frank & D’Hondt, (1979) “Aptitudes and learning chess in Zaire”, Psychopathologie Africane, 15, 81-98.

 

Gaudreau (1992), “Etude Comparative sur les Apprentissages en Mathematiques 5e Annee”, June manuscript

 

Ho (2006), “Enriching math using chess”, Journal of the British Columbia Association of Mathematics Teachers, British Columbia, Canada, Vector, Volume 47, Issue 2.

 

Smith & Cage (2000), “The effects of chess instruction on the mathematics achievement of Southern, rural, Black secondary students”, Research in the Schoo



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How to Find a Good Vancouver Summer Program on Math

 

Frank Ho, Amanda Yang

 

Teachers at Ho Math and Chess Learning Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada

 

www.mathandchess.com

 

We have been running an math specialty learning center in Vancouver for over 10 years and also both of our children went to all kinds of summer programs in Vancouver so we would like to share our own experience on how to find a good summer math camp or math program offered by learning centers in Vancouver. There are a few tale signs one can use to screen summer programs and these earlier warning signs can be used equally to evaluate summer programs offered in other cities as well.

 

1.     To teach what one knows the best.

 

Check out if the math program offered is the learning center’s expertise. If an math learning center all the sudden starts to offer computer course without up-to-dated hardware or a computer room in place then you may wonder if the learning center is out to make a quick buck? Or if the learning center is teaching mainly math but start to offer Chinese chess or other courses in the summer and the director or owner has no interest in playing chess then you may start to wonder what is their teaching philosophy or intention to offer these “out-of-core” courses?

           

2.     Check out the learning center’s teaching philosophy.

 

What is the learning center’s teaching philosophy of offering the summer math program? What kind of teaching method is being used? If the learning center cannot explain clearly to you but only copies other center’s ideas then this serves as a warning sign that you may have sent children to a wrong place.

 

The important deciding factor is don’t go to a place where the math and chess teaching is not their specialty if you want to have children to learn both math and chess in a fun way. Don’t go to a place to learn chess where the owner or director does not even know anything about chess or has nothing to say about its teaching philosophy.

 

Do diligently and carefully check out the facility offered. The worst is parents did not check out facility and send children to a place where no suitable facility is offered such as a separate computer room or a separate chess play room.

 

Ho Math and Chess offers unique and one-of-a-kind math and chess integrated and patented worksheets. We are the leader in math and chess integrated teaching and we are also the only place in Vancouver offering math and chess integrated teaching to raise children’s math marks, train their critical thinking skill and also boost their brainpower by playing chess. There must be a reason why Ho Math and Chess has over 30 locations worldwide, check it out at www.mathandchess.com.



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