2 Mar
2013
2 Mar
'13
5:21 a.m.
From: Seth Morabito <lists at loomcom.com>
C: And you actually don't believe there's any merit in strengthening your
problem solving ability by doing a certain number of rote calculating,
particularly in the young mind?
Rote calculating only marginally improves problem solving abilities. Mainly
it drills into your head the basic mechanics of calculation. I have no
problem with this in early elementary, however, once algebra is introduced
symbolic computation should be priority. I was still doing long division in
high school - what was the point of that? After 10 years I had it pretty
well down (heck I had it down after 5 years) After basic calculation and
algebra are mastered, I don't see *any* reason to compute any A/D/M/S
operation.
As an aside: here's an incredible game that teaches 8-year-olds algebra:
http://dragonboxapp.com/