| MONDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2003 |
|
|
Close Encounters
Of The Maths Kind |
CAREER COUNSELLOR 5 |
|
|
Much before the West discovered the Pythagoras
theorem, it was mentioned in the Shalva Sutras. Today, the teacher
could encourage a child to apply the similarity of triangles
to find out the height of a building; or use probability theory
to explain Mendel's laws of heredity; or use computers to explore
numbers visually. All mathematicians think in terms of pictures,
Computers can help them explain the fundamentals of the subject,"
says Singh.
|
 |
Use hand- held devices such as graphic calculators
from casio to understand the occurrence of prime numbers
that will help you analyse statistical data
|
|
Read,read,read:Ask your teacher or your librarian to
recommend good books on the subject
|
|
Break it in parts : Breaking in a bigger figure like
a squre into smaller sized rectangles is a useful funda
|
|
Relate it to real life: Maths is around you in architecture,
engineering and planetary movements. Do assignments like
measuring the height of a building using frignometry.
|
Prof. Dinesh Singh of St. Stephen's College feels that maths
should be related to real life to make it easy
Aasheesh Sharma
THERE I was, treading into a dreaded zone. This story required
me to interview a species that has given me nightmares in school.
A conference of Mathematics teachers isn't exactly a wordsmith's
idea of am ideal assignment. Particularly one who couldn't figure
out the works of numbers despite the best efforts of tutors. |
|
But the key to making mathematics less intimidating doesn't
have much to do with numbers.It has a lot to do with sensitivity."Parent
shouldn't lable the child a failure. Unless the teacher is passionate,
maths will be frightening." says Singh.
"Anyway,
there is nothing be intimidated. Maths is embedded in nature
. The laws of heredily,the principal of aviation are mathematical.
Running away from nature,"he says.Looking back, this close
encounter with Maths wasn't too scary!" |
| |
| |
The offcasion : A workshop organised by Casio on the role
of technology and learning mathematics, The venue: DPS R K Puram.
The speaker: Professor Dinesh Singh, director; Mathematical
Sciences Foundation ,St Stephen's College. It was his words
that broke me out of my daze."All technology is meaningless
if it is made into a ritual. Teachers must change their mindset,"
said Singh . There, I always knew the equation was flawed: It
is not the student who can't solve algorithms, the teacher is
equally at faculty. So,how can one make Math's interesting for
students? " Relate it to real life.
|
.jpg)
