Workshop on Mathematics

at the primary level by Ms. Ashalata Badami

Oxford University Press conducted a workshop on Mathematics at our School on 21 December, 2013. The workshop was attended by the primary teachers of several other schools as well. Mrs. Ashalata Badami, with more than 20 years experience in the field of elementary Maths education was our resource person. The workshop aimed at helping teachers understand and facilitate students to appreciate the usefulness and applicability of Mathematics in real- life situations.

Mrs. Badami began the workshop by asking the teachers to recall the stages or the sequence involved in teaching any concept. She emphasized the method, ELPS (E- experience with concrete objects, L- language, P- picture, S-symbol) for concept-building. Students commonly look for 'clue-words' while solving a word problem, which actually defeats the purpose. She therefore suggested a new approach to problem- solving where students will look at quantities given in the word problem and try to establish a relation between them by drawing simple bar diagrams. Several word problems, involving each operation, were explained and solved using these bar diagrams. Ms. Badami also suggested games like Mastermind, Blind Tic-Tac-Toe etc which can help students build logical thinking.

Activity based teachingthe magic mantra to help a child to think, was the theme of the workshop. This was linked with Student Journals- an innovative way to help the child communicate, thereby enabling the teacher to get to know the level of comprehension by the student. Mrs. Badami told the teachers that this could be taken as an activity once the topic is over, as it would help the teachers in getting an exact idea of how much a child has understood or if he/she has any confusion related to the topic.

Next she explained how the concepts of addition and subtraction using regrouping, number bonds and number-combinations from 1 to 10 could be strengthened in the childs mind using various activities. She emphasized the use of rajma- seeds, ice-cream- sticks and zip- lock bags as a classroom resource for teaching these concepts at the primary level. Representation of tenths and hundredths, the comparison and addition of decimal numbers was also demonstrated using easily available teaching aids like square- lined paper and number grids of 10 X 10.

The workshop was an enriching experience as it provided teachers with simple techniques which would facilitate the development of core mathematical concepts and problem- solving skills in students.