Tag Archives: memorization

Ditching the Note Cards

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There is, I think, an important distinction that needs to be made between certain types of knowledge and certain types of evaluative procedures. If you read last weeks post you’re probably up to date about my big test and my note card usage. What you might not be up to date about are my thoughts about said evaluation. Currently, I’m studying for a somewhat lengthy multiple choice test evaluating what I think of as memorized knowledge: “Match this to that,” or “Which of the following don’t belong?” or “What year did this event take place in. The problems with this … Continue reading →

Some Things Just Need to be Memorized

I have a master’s degree in teaching mathematics. In many and most of my college graduate level courses we discussed the reasoning behind why we do the things that we do, mathematically speaking. The idea is not to teach the children that two times three is six but teach them why by showing the process of addition. All other mathematical concepts were also presented in this way. We kept math journals and recorded our mathematical thinking through difficult word problems and math puzzles. I agree with the concept that children will learn and remember if they understand why. However, the … Continue reading →