Algorithms
Algorithms --- Maths learning or Maths Calculating?
Dr. Raj Shah explains why Maths is taught differently than it was in the past and helps address
parents' misconceptions about this "New Maths teaching".
There are 3 problems with teaching algorithms.
1. Students come to believe that doing math IS doing the algorithm.
An algorithm is one way of doing a problem, that may – or may not – be efficient for someone.
The algorithm is not the math. It’s just a route.
And it holds no promise of understanding or discovery.
2. Students learn to stop thinking and start asking for the algorithm.
I was devastated the first time I heard, “Can you just tell us the steps?”
But that’s what we’ve trained today’s college students to be: Algorithm learners.
Which would be okay, except for this:
3. The human brain is not a computer!
In order for an algorithm to work, it has to be followed exactly.
Computers can do this. Humans cannot.
We are trying to teach children to learn and understand Mathematical concepts and not just to calculate an answer. Learning vs Calculating