EFFECTIVE WAYS OF LEARNING MATHS
My Maths Buddy Project Approach
The My Maths Buddy Project utilizes an approach called the Four Levels of Learning Maths Successfully. It is a specific multilayer approach that is important to apply when teaching/learning Maths throughout learners’ school careers that starts with Grade 1 and moves through primary and high school grades preparing these learners for higher education. One of the important rules is that the levels must be done in the exact sequence and cannot be skipped.
LEVEL ONE: KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge of Maths is a key, number one activity that children must be introduced to for them to gain a stable foundation for everything that awaits them in Maths.
A learner must be exposed to Maths terminology and concepts and know them very well. Knowledge is the foundation and as in any building activity, a strong foundation creates sustainability and healthy consistent growth. Without it no matter what else you keep on adding on top of it, it will create consistent instability, uncertainty and ultimately failure.
LEVEL TWO: APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE
Any knowledge not applied is just a bunch of data that sits in someone’s mind unutilized and serving no purpose. One must learn something with the purpose of applying this knowledge in real life.
Application of Maths knowledge is another stepping stone to a learners’ ability to solve problems and forms the second layer of the foundation that learners must firmly acquire during their process of learning Maths. These two levels go hand in hand in forming a learner’s ability to solve problems.
The above two levels will essentially allow a learner to engage with Maths with full understanding and reality which in turn will create continuous interest and willingness to learn and explore the subject. It also lays a solid foundation for learners’ skills in problem solving.
LEVEL THREE: PROBLEM SOLVING
A learner now can safely arrive at the next level of learning Maths where they learn to solve Maths problems. With the foundation strongly there, a learner is now ready to the mind challenges of problem solving. It is then vitally important
that a learner gets challenged with more complex Maths problems so that they can start utilizing their mind and tap into their ability to think abstractly and critically. And this now lays a foundation for a transition from level 3 to level 4 -Abstract Maths.
LEVEL FOUR: ABSTRACT MATHS
Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting
the underlying structures, patterns or properties of a mathematical concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications. In other words, a mind stops depending on the real objects to solve problems and can just simply think with the Maths concepts, apply them to many problems that the mind is encountering on the daily basis and solves them efficiently and accurately. It is practically impossible for a learner to achieve a level 4 Maths if the prior three are not fully grasped.
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