Intuition and Owning Your Math Knowledge
This week we discussed the idea of using intuition when approaching math problems. Essentially asking yourself 'what is this question trying to ask me' as you work through or initially approach a question. Take, for example, the video below. Now, a lot of those students probably didn't understand the problem but tried to solve it anyway with the numbers provided. Had they trusted their intuition that something was off they would have been significantly more successful.We need to teach our students that it's okay (and even encouraged) to question why they're doing something; why they're learning something. Knowing 'why' allows them to make connections between math to math, math to self, and math to the world. These connections are critical, since learning math within it's context allows students to truly understand where it fits and what it means. Another idea that was discussed was taking the abstract-ness out of math whenever possible....