Thursday 30 January 2014

Keep It Simple, Silly!

The students of 5/6We have been working hard the last couple of weeks on revisiting and learning methods for division and multiplication.  Students have been working primarily on what we call the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, silly) Method.

Our goal in math is not to become the quickest at solving multiplication and division algorithms, but instead to arrive at the correct answer every time.  We also want to learn how to recognize when we arrive at an incorrect answer and learn to recognize where and why we made an error.

The K.I.S.S. Method allows students to simplify their work by breaking the problems into manageable, place-value based chunks.  Only once students are comfortable, confident and ready do I pull the aside individually or in small groups to learn the short-cut methods (or traditional methods) of solving these algorithms that many adults are accustomed too.

I was asked recently as to why I don't just teach the traditional methods, as it is much faster and more efficient.  In fact, the most efficient and accurate method is to use a calculator, not the traditional method, and I would hope that teachers and parents would agree that isn't our goal.  My job is to teach understanding of number concepts, and to instill confidence in my students.  The K.I.S.S. method does a great job of that!

Check out some of our students explaining the KISS method of long division in the video below: