Mathematic misconceptions arise in education as a result of students’ interpreting a situation differently than what is being taught in class. While some students may make mistakes in class due to lack of attention or lack of knowledge, there are common mistakes made in mathematics as a result of misunderstandings. As teachers, we are the ones responsible with developing our students’ conceptual understandings of mathematics in such a way that our lessons cater to the meaning of what is being taught.
Number (Description of misconception)
Number is the predominate strand in mathematics. When misconceptions occur in number, the development of the concept of number becomes more difficult as students lack the understanding of what is being taught …show more content…
Instead of commanding the presence of the room in the mathematics lesson, instead take an alternative approach to allow students active participation by asking open ending questions, as opposed to complete control and closed ended questions. (Wood, 1988). This allows the discussion to flow more freely as the students’ feel more comfortable expressing their opinions. Students’ needs to gain a visual of a number line, to see that it does not only consist of positive numbers, and there is another concept of negative numbers beyond this. You could start the discussion by getting them to think, pair and share about what they see in this number line. How is it different to what we normally see? It is integral to give them time to think about what they are looking at and how they will respond to the question in order to get quality thinking and better answers. By starting off with a think, pair and share, it gives a greater discussion as the different pairs have different opinions, allowing the class to figure out why this number line goes backwards as well as …show more content…
As students’ learn how to measure, individuals misinterpret the representations. Although it seems like a simple concept for adults, Battista (2006) claims measurement can be a difficult concept for children to understand. A common misconception in measurement is the students’ misreading the scale on a ruler, as they do not know “whether to count the marks or the spaces” (Averill & Harvey, 2010, p. 106), or whether to start from the one or the zero. It is merely a misunderstanding of the meaning of the concept of measurement. If students are asked to measure 7cm on a ruler, students that start measuring from 1cm at stop at 7cm are actually only measuring 6cm. To start from 0cm on the ruler and finish at 7cm will give the correct
Number (Description of misconception)
Number is the predominate strand in mathematics. When misconceptions occur in number, the development of the concept of number becomes more difficult as students lack the understanding of what is being taught …show more content…
Instead of commanding the presence of the room in the mathematics lesson, instead take an alternative approach to allow students active participation by asking open ending questions, as opposed to complete control and closed ended questions. (Wood, 1988). This allows the discussion to flow more freely as the students’ feel more comfortable expressing their opinions. Students’ needs to gain a visual of a number line, to see that it does not only consist of positive numbers, and there is another concept of negative numbers beyond this. You could start the discussion by getting them to think, pair and share about what they see in this number line. How is it different to what we normally see? It is integral to give them time to think about what they are looking at and how they will respond to the question in order to get quality thinking and better answers. By starting off with a think, pair and share, it gives a greater discussion as the different pairs have different opinions, allowing the class to figure out why this number line goes backwards as well as …show more content…
As students’ learn how to measure, individuals misinterpret the representations. Although it seems like a simple concept for adults, Battista (2006) claims measurement can be a difficult concept for children to understand. A common misconception in measurement is the students’ misreading the scale on a ruler, as they do not know “whether to count the marks or the spaces” (Averill & Harvey, 2010, p. 106), or whether to start from the one or the zero. It is merely a misunderstanding of the meaning of the concept of measurement. If students are asked to measure 7cm on a ruler, students that start measuring from 1cm at stop at 7cm are actually only measuring 6cm. To start from 0cm on the ruler and finish at 7cm will give the correct