New Approaches to Help Students Overcome Math Struggles
No one would attempt to climb Mount Everest in a day.
But when we teach math, we often expect something similar from students. We expect them to learn a complex, multi-step process in one lesson, in one hour. We expect them to go from no awareness of the process, to awareness to competence to mastery. And we don’t take account of the fact that many math process requires a long ladder of thought steps. In edu-jargon, this process of taking all of the little steps into account — and teaching each step individually — is called “scaffolding.”
Like climbing Everest, doing Math requires many STEPS
I have long found “scaffolding” important in working with students who struggle with math in general and algebra in particular. (more…)
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