When I was a child, my mathematician father told me that I needed to memorize the multiplication tables, memory tricks were cheating. Years later in teacher's college we are told that memorization doesn't work because the info in short term memory does not necessarily (and most oftenly) end up in long term memory. On top of that, we learned all kinds of strategies for adding and multiplying that I had never seen before! For example...those darn 8x tables, toss 'em out, to find any number x8, simply double it, double it and double it again! What?! Why was I robbed of this gem as a child? Guess what? Want x16, double once more...x32, double again...oh, my, how easy!
For Christmas this year I requested a copy of Rapid Math Tricks and Tips - 30 Days to Number Power. Not only does it offer tips on simple mathematical calculations, but others that appear to be more complicated, but really are not (if you know the tip or trick). Putting strategies like these into the minds of our students will give them mastery over numbers like they've never experienced before...it has for me, and I'm not even done my 30 days yet!
What's your opinion...math tricks - cheating or genius?
Linda
I feel like memorization and math tricks are really just two sides of the same coin. They are both ways to help someone remember what the correct answer is. And they are both meaningless if the student does not understand the concept. For example, memorizing that 8x7=56 is kinda pointless if you don't understand that there are 8 groups of 7 (or 7 groups of 8. But to answer your question, I would not call math tricks cheating :)
ReplyDeleteI definitely would not consider math tricks to be cheating. It's simply being smart! Work smarter, not harder!
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