The “Singapore way” of getting students to study math has gained popularity and there are many reasons behind this. It has been written in New York times that “Singapore and aims to emulate that country’s success by promoting a deeper understanding of numbers and math concepts. Students in Singapore have repeatedly ranked at or near the top on international maths exam since the mid-1990s.”. This is such a statement of pride for Singaporeans because many countries look towards Singapore mathematics on following a good strategy to train students.
WHY IN THE USA?
It has been a concern that many American students lack higher order skills in solving mathematical problems. Critical thinking is absolutely essential since this is what will help in future. The capacity to convert information into knowledge and be able to apply to solve novel situations is what is required. Math question in examinations are never straight forward in the way they test students on concepts. In a single question, up to 5 concepts may be intertwined and students need to be able to interconnect and understand how to use put their knowledge to use in order to derive an answer.
What do we mean by critical thinking skills?
Critical thinking is defined as the ability to think rationally with clarity, and to be able to comprehend information and connect them with a logical flow. Critical thinking has been debated for centuries and psychology behind it is still at to be derived with clarity. This has been discussed ad nauseum because it is something so necessary and education systems all around the world try to incorporate this into education to the best of their ability.
WHO WERE THE FIRST TO INITIATE THIS?
The earliest adopters of Singapore’s method of math-teaching in the United States were home-school parents and a small number of schools that had heard about it. Today it has become so famous that is being followed in various schools many States such as Manhattan and Washington. Be it elite schools or neighborhood schools, the methods are followed widespread.
THE CHALLENGE
The main difficulty in adopting Singapore’s method of educating students in Math is that apart from students being unable to cope up with the steep learning curve, teachers aren’t that qualifies enough to be able to teach students to keep up as well. Teachers in the USA require the extra amount of training to refresh their skills and adopt new strategies to teach students in new angles.
As a case in point, when the Scarsdale district switched to Singapore math at its elementary schools back in 2008, the number of math coaches were raised in 110 classroom teachers train them effectively. The district spent a significant amount of money on the materials in order to tackle this challenge.
BOTTOM LINE
The change was appreciated and welcomed in the USA all over, though Math did become a challenging subject for students to learn, as well as for teachers to teach. This acts as a great step ahead in developing advanced minds, molding them in such a way that thinking creatively and in-depth becomes a skill that’s on their finger tips.
Here are more article on Singapore Math that might help you. have a look:
5 Reasons For The Popularity Of Singapore Math
6 Ways To Succeed Under Challenging Singapore Math Programmes