Faced with the widespread movement of letting children learn mathematical thinking among parents, many mathematicians believe that this phenomenon is more positive than negative. First of all, it is because parents have realized the risk of their children being taught in the wrong way just to meet short-term goals. Moreover, although many people let their children learn mathematical thinking simply to follow the "trend", it shows that parents want their children to become independent thinkers, to develop their creativity in the learning process.
If you want students to think, first of all you have to make them not afraid of math.
If children are happy to go to school, it's all good for everyone.
According to Professor Le Anh Vinh, Director of the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, there are currently two types of extra learning. One type is pure extra learning, in which teachers stick to the general curriculum but focus on giving students many different types of exercises, in order to help them improve their scores in class or when taking exams. Another type of extra learning is taking thinking training classes, although it is not certain that they will improve their scores immediately, it is a useful type of extra learning. With the second type of learning, knowledge is gradually absorbed into the learner, at the same time forming in them the ability to think to find ways to solve problems, even if it is a problem that has never been learned before. Once students have good thinking, they will have an advantage when studying other subjects, not just math.
In reality, there are many places that advertise teaching thinking math, but it is difficult for parents to know whether they really teach students to think as advertised. If it is true that thinking is taught, students are taught to think to solve problems, not just sit in class and do exercises. "For example, there are places that teach students to calculate quickly and do mental arithmetic well, so how can that be called teaching thinking! It is just teaching calculation, teaching like this is harmful to thinking," said Professor Vinh.
According to Professor Phung Ho Hai, Vietnam Institute of Mathematics, even adults follow the "trend", but if children go to school and feel happy, then everyone is... beneficial. Children learn math like learning anything else, the highest success criteria is that they like it, are interested in learning. If parents want to know if a place is useful for their children, they should go to the class and see if the children in the class pay attention to the teacher and are enthusiastic about doing their homework, that is good.
When defining the goal of "learning math to be smarter", teaching math in high school must be easier.
STUDENTS NEED TO BE TEACHED PROPERLY
Many math teachers and mathematicians believe that if teachers teach math in the true sense of the word, it is teaching thinking. The benefit of this may not make students good at math, but at least it will help them not be afraid of… math.
According to Mr. Pham Van Hoan, Principal of Xa Dan Secondary School (Hanoi), the math program currently used in high schools cannot be blamed when many students are afraid of math. In particular, the new program is reasonably designed, helping teachers and students approach math more easily. If you want students to think, you must first make them not afraid of math. If you want them not to be afraid of math, teachers must teach carefully so that students have a firm understanding of the basic content. "But many math teachers have not done their job well. Instead of helping students understand basic knowledge thoroughly, teachers spread out non-basic issues. Giving more exercises when students have not grasped the essence of the lesson only makes things more confusing. But our current basic math program still helps teachers train students' thinking, making them not afraid of math," Mr. Hoan commented.
Professor Phung Ho Hai stated that math is not a subject only for smart people, but everyone learns math to become smarter. When determining the purpose of "learning math to become smarter", teaching math in high schools must be easier. Currently, many students are being taught very difficult math, not difficult in terms of creativity but difficult in terms of complexity. If teachers focus too much on complexity, students will only learn skills but not foster creativity, and they will become math solvers.
Professor Vinh said: "Not all students need to become good math students, but they need to be taught correctly. Learning that requires a lot of calculation and practice is not good."
Many parents let their children learn mental math with the hope that their children will do well in math at school.
NEED TO NURTURE CREATIVE THINKING
According to Professor Hai, the goal of extra classes is always very specific, usually exam preparation. The way of teaching in extra classes is often to teach types of exercises. That way of teaching kills students' feelings about math. Students learn math as a tool to achieve other things, for example, to have achievements in exams or to pass this or that school. "In my opinion, the trend of "thinking math" is good. Of course there will be exploitation and imitation. But let that trend develop, no matter how wrong it is in reality, society will find solutions to correct it," said Professor Hai.
Eliminate multiple choice tests to improve thinking skills?
According to Dr. Doan Minh Dang, a scientist working for a company in Germany, to improve students' thinking skills, first of all, the Ministry of Education and Training should eliminate multiple-choice tests for science subjects in the high school graduation exam.
The advantage of multiple choice tests is that the test makers can easily test knowledge on a wide range. However, due to the habit of studying for exams of Vietnamese students, students also learn strategies to deal with this type of test. A typical strategy is to do multiple choice tests by eliminating incorrect options. In this way, candidates can choose the correct answer without having to find out the exact result, when they can guess or deduce which options are wrong to eliminate. In the end, candidates achieve the goal of getting points on that question, but also lose the opportunity to practice the skill of finding the correct answer, which is very important for natural sciences.
A greater harm of multiple-choice testing for Vietnamese students is that it makes them neglect to practice their expression skills and the skills of writing complete arguments, because this is not required in multiple-choice tests. When students do not practice expressing arguments into complete sentences, it is difficult for them to see the shortcomings in their argumentation (and knowledge).
Professor Vinh also said that in education, there are short-term goals and long-term goals. The long-term goal is to develop people, students will become good people, live decently, have the ability to think, the ability to think logically... The short-term goal is to achieve good results in tests, exams... Sometimes long-term goals and short-term goals will be in conflict, parents must know how to balance that. As for those who work in education, they certainly cannot only pursue short-term goals because they will never see the long-term goal.
According to Dr. Vu Thi Ngoc Ha, Institute of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, there are many types of thinking, of which creative thinking is the most important to nurture. Besides "slow learning", children need "gaps" in their time and this is an extremely important factor to help children increase their creative thinking and imagination through the books they read, or through a math or physics problem that they are pursuing. "When we give a child a math problem, we have to give them time to solve the problem, which stimulates their brain. But teaching like that makes it difficult to help children achieve high scores as expected, difficult to help children win prizes in exams in a short time. Moreover, each child's thinking results depend on many factors, so not all children who are taught "thinking math" will become good at math, but it will help children not be afraid of math", Dr. Ha shared.
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