Wednesday, August 6, 2008
memory strategies - practice or drill?
I did some research on that websight "www.mathforum.com and there were some interesting lists of strategies to help with memorization. Some of the strategies seemed to me to be more like "practice". These included: explaining the math concept to someone else, solving the math problem both backwards and forwards, using mneumonics, using visual associations or making associations to real life situations. They also talked about "repeated review" which to me seemed more like math drill.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
It sounds to me that when learning a new skill, some practice is required, then it can be helpful, or even enjoyable, to do drill work.
Drill can be useful for students to self-assess.
I remember enjoying drill very much. It's like one channel of my brain did the work, while I gained a deeper understanding of my skill on the other.
I agree that the examples Cynthia referred to as "memorization strategies" are akin to practice rather than drills.
I like to think of practice as being introduced to and working out math concepts; trying different ways to capture understanding to own it.
As for drills, most students in my room enjoy math games (Around-the-World) and even the timed tests as exciting ways to show themselves and others what they have learned in a quick, interactive manner.
I agree that once a concept or skill is understood, drills can be fun. They can be a fun way to self-assess as Dave said, but also to self-motivate. As a competitive person, I too enjoyed them and loved seeing my own improvement. However, ‘practice’ was essential, which for me (back then) was rote memorization. Did I learn the answer. Yes. Did I understand the skill and connect it to other mathematical concepts? Not always.
Practice, drill--call it what you want. Having the kids practice then drill in a variety of fun ways which attend to the variety of learning styles in your classroom helps set the pathways through the brain so students can become efficient users of math when solving problems. It is easy to make practice and drill 'fun'.
I like this definition as I have thought of practice as working on ways to review a concept. This can be done in many different ways. I have always thought of doing drills with basic facts, also. Drills imply that one does something over and over in order to memorize.
Post a Comment