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By ± Zeeshan Paul

Ask your students where in their daily life they use such concepts as j
  (%) or j (ʌx and see how many can respond.
Yes, this is true many of our Pakistani students don¶t know the application of these fundamental concepts in Mathematics.
Application of Mathematics in its true sense enables ordinary students to do extra-ordinary. Use of Y

  enabled
scientists to calculate the Voyager's journey to the planets, c 



 a theory of mathematical structures, to develop
computer software, 


  to
provide the theory and methodology when studying the laws of population change
and also 
 Y , for analysing data on the causes of illness and on the utility of new drugs.

The question is,   our Pakistani math teachers would be able to move the students from lower to higher order thinking skills in
mathematics to enable them to apply their learning for innovation and creation;   the students will love Mathematics than
hating it.

First of all a math teacher must  


j 
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 Judy Willis who is a middle and
elementary school teacher and a former neurologist, in her latest book,  


 
, examines strategies for building
math ³positivity´ in students. She states, ³Before children can become interested in math, they have to be comfortable with it.
Students build resilience and coping strategies when they learn how to use their academic strengths to build math skills and
strategies. A teacher¶s intervention helps them strengthen the networks that carry information through their brains¶ emotional
filters to the area where higher-order thinking skills are concentrated, the prefrontal cortex (PFC). With practice, they will be able
to use the highest-level analytical networks in the PFC to evaluate incoming information and discover creative solutions to math
problems.

Secondly, a math teacher must find ways to 
 


 
j
  


Y

 j

j
 
because what
looks like a struggle with math may actually be a deficiency in the underlying cognitive processes. Mel Levine, author of 
Y



 and other books on learning differences, identifies many of the brain¶s processes that math requires (see Figure 1).

  




 Semantics   

Applied reasoning Symbolization c
 Visual/Mental
Rule understanding and Sentence comprehension Pattern recognition imagery
use ‡ Phonological awareness ‡ Procedural recall ‡ Graphic
‡ Concept formation and ‡ Sequential representation
linkage memory ‡ Geometric

 


‡ Analytical thinking ‡ Working perception
Detail processing
‡ Mental representation ‡ Production control memory ‡ Grapho-motor
‡ Metacognition ‡ Sustaining attention control




Broyles and Pittard ± faculty of The Howard School, applied Mel Levine¶s model (shown above) for the teaching of long division
and verified the usability of the model. They found to solve a long division problem a student must remember and complete more
than 20 steps which require sustained attention to process, procedural recall, language processing, detailed paper organization,
scattered visual tracking, and strong working memory. Together there were at least 13 of the above sub-processes at work in long
division. If teachers just teach the order and process of the algorithm, instead of investigating at what point the process i s breaking
down, the student will likely continue to struggle.

Thirdly, a math teacher must keep the following additional points in mind while teaching a math problem:
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 j 
Y


 
  Many students who struggle with pencil and
paper computation are strong spatial thinkers and mathematical problem solvers. If students are verbally asked, ³If you
put nine balls evenly in three baskets, how many go in each?´ and a student can answer it, t hen he understands division.
If the same student cannot do long division, then some process besides conceptual understanding is breaking down. In
this case, calculators could be allowed during problem solving.
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 A weak working memory has a tremendous impact on math performance.
Even simple computation requires working memory to complete, and as math¶s complexity increases, so does the
demand on working memory. One way to help students is to allow them to write each step of the problem, jotting notes
along the way and having the steps of a procedure available as a checklist.
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j 
 j 
  j All students move through a developmental sequence from concrete to
abstract, and many need the physical representations for a longer period than is often provided in Pakistani schools. Also,
many students may need the concrete-to-abstract sequence represented for each new concept. In Figure 2, I have shown
one worksheet that I developed to teach the concept of
Y  the decimal fractions. Students were asked to suggest
(the bunny on the worksheet) the shortest way to escape the rain.
‘ m  j
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 Many students with language difficulties almost certainly have difficulties
in receiving instruction through language-heavy methods. Students with phonological processing issues may make errors
like writing 13 for 30. Language issue becomes worse in such schools where textbooks and medium of instruction are
English but students¶ processing of instruction is done in other languages other than English. Language also becomes a
barrier when students attempt to solve word problems. Word problems should be approached with many of the same
strategies used for reading comprehension, with special attention to the ³math words´ that cue the student to perform a
particular operation.

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30-60 minutes a day is not enough for math. If math abilities are to develop in
the sense of use and application, then math should be part of all subjects when appropriate. Math teacher should work in
collaboration with other teachers. For example, social studies teachers should ask students to compare elements such as
land area, GDP and population. Science teachers should have students collect and process data. Language arts teachers
should have the students work with numbers that occur in literature for instance distances, dates and time, and so on.
Math is hard for many students. Left brainers usually love math and right brainers do not. For people who struggle with math
teaching should be done with appropriate examples, hands on activities, objects and online tutorials which show various ways to
teach any topic with the focus on tapping into neuro-developmental processes hence developing students who are mathematical
thinkers, not algorithm solvers. As teachers and schools become better educated about the cognitive processes involved in math,
all students, including those with learning differences, can become mathematical thinkers.

Zeeshan Paul
Lecturer
Notre Dame Institute of Education Karachi
zeeshan.paul@ndie.edu.pk
+92-321-3110879