We help students improve their thinking skills. Incidentally, we also teach math.
You cannot have math skills without becoming a logical thinker.
So how do we spark “Thinking”?
We are firm believers that thinking is the foundation of learning – – because it makes us understand the “why” behind everything. Whereas traditional teaching makes students vulnerable to just following steps — they figure out “rules” to “answer” questions — learning-through-thinking helps people problem-solve in a variety of contexts. Our online math tutors help students understand the “why” behind everything. Once this is understood, all of life becomes a learning opportunity for our students and his is what students need for the real world.
LERA BORODITSKY, an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience, and symbolic systems at Stanford University has spoken extensively about the impact the language of our mother tongue has on our overall thinking.
But, what is the impact of learning math like a language and its ability to help us think better?
Think about this: If you’re learning a foreign language such as German or Japanese, the process is much easier if you relate the grammar and vocabulary initially to a specific context in the language that you already know. You then apply those rules to other contexts as you continue learning a new language.
So an apple in English is Apfel in German.
You create anchors in your mind to recognize that apple in both languages starts with “ap”. You begin to form relationships now between your English Apple and German Apple so that you can bring up Apfel in German when provided a relevant context.
We do the same thing with math. We anchor information and learning to specific contexts.
We create lifelong learners by anchoring problems to real-life situations. For example, here’s a word and number problem that involves distractors:
You have three apples, four oranges, and five carrots in a basket. How many pieces of fruit are there? Students have to understand they can’t just add all the items (fruits & vegetables) to get the answer. Instead, they have to realize that carrots are not fruit and remove that from consideration. Fruit is an anchor that allows the student to remove the number of vegetables in this context because students already have anchors in their mind to identify fruits from vegetables. This teaches them contextual skills.
