Critical Math will be our practice problem series that will test developing math skills, and involve some critical thinking. Many students start out understanding math just fine in their early years. They memorize numbers and learn the basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division). However, as they are asked to apply those skills to real world scenarios and everyday tasks, the transition can stump them! Unfortunately this means that they’ve missed a connection between arithmetic and problem-solving. This stems from two areas: critical thinking, and number sense. Today we’ll cover the basics of critical thinking in math class.
Critical thinking comes in when a student can read a problem and see that it involves numbers, but isn’t sure what to do with those numbers even if they understand arithmetic. These problems look like “Suzie had 5 bags of apples, and each bag has 9 apples. How many apples does she have?” Now the correct response is to multiply, but some students miss that jump. They see two numbers and know they are expected to find an answer with math. So quite a few responses might be “15!” and when you ask why, they see it’s wrong so switch to subtraction, and tell you “1!” The student doesn’t understand that the problem has a context, not just numbers to be put through the math machine. Because they’ve missed that connection, they go down a list of things they learned: addition, subtraction, etc. Hence why it is important to practice critical thinking problems; so that students, especially young ones, can build a sense of reality that connects to numbers instead of thinking of them as abstract figures.
Next week we’ll discover how this combines with number sense, but for now, here’s a practice problem involving Suzie from above. Try it out with your child and ask how they might know how to solve it.
Suzie want to make 3 apple pies, and the recipe calls for 7 apples for each pie. How many apples does Suzie need to make her pies?
Answer: Suzie needs to have 3 groups of 7 apples, so we multiply 3 by 7. This gives us 21, so Suzie needs 21 apples for her recipe.
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