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posted by mrpg on Saturday May 13 2017, @04:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the 2x²+x+64 dept.

If you've ever had to help your child with math homework, you really appreciate their teachers, who do it every day. "Math anxiety" isn't something only kids experience.

Maybe you haven't seen an algebra formula in years, and weren't that comfortable with them when you were a student. Maybe you're a skilled mathematician, but don't know how to explain what you're doing to a child. Whatever the case, math homework can leave parents feeling every bit as frustrated as their children. Homework doesn't have to lead to unpleasantness, though.

What I've learned through my own experience—as a teacher, a researcher, from helping my own children, and now watching my daughter work as an elementary school mathematics teacher—is that communication is (excuse the pun) the common denominator when it comes to making math homework a positive experience.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), where I work, is dedicated to research. We support scientists across the country who study learning and education systems. But we're also teachers at heart. On lunch breaks in the past, a group of us gathered to help our NSF peers with their own questions about how to help their kids learn math.

Here are a few tips from what we've learned:

Do Soylentils have better tips, things that have really helped their own kids learn math?


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday May 13 2017, @11:55AM

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday May 13 2017, @11:55AM (#509102) Journal

    Math... any of the sciences... shop... fun!

    No problems with spelling or grammar.

    English Literature was my own personal hell.

    Especially lengthy tomes by Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, or Chaucer.

    I loved a good science fiction read.

    The other stuff, like History, wasn't fun, but do-able. I much preferred the "why" part of it to the "who" or "when" part.

    Geography was interesting.

    PE was a welcome break from the tedium of sitting in the classroom. I was good at rope climbing in those days, but did not run worth a damm. Like a skinny little monkey. No good at it now, though.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]