Week 4

Mathematics Syllabus Documents

This week's lesson started off with the comparison between Queensland Early Childhood Mathematics Syllabus Documents with some other countries' Early Childhood Mathematics Syllabus Documents (Malaysia, China and Norway). It has been so interesting for me to find out that in the Queensland Early Childhood Mathematics Syllabus Document, recognizing the images on the notes and coins is also included as a part of Mathematics lessons. It might sound like a very simple thing to be included in a lesson but it is actually a very important thing to learn. Learning to recognize images on the notes and coins involves a bit of history as well as general knowledge and this helps young learners to develop their thinking skills.

Mental Computation Strategies

Mental computation strategies are strategies used in dealing with math problems which involve bigger numbers. Some of the strategies are by using the 100 Charts and the 99 Charts and by using empty number lines. For each question given, there will absolutely be different kinds of suggested order of presentation of numbers. The teacher's role therefore is to encourage children to think of any possible solutions for the question given and then share and compare them with other students. This way, students will be able to see different ways that they can use to solve a particular question.

After attending this week's lecture and workshop, I have come to realize that in learning mathematics, the right answer is not the most important thing but the process towards getting the right answer is what matters the most.