On Friday, Michelle and Abby and I were very lucky to be able to attend a Country Education Project seminar “21st Century Learners in Rural Communities” with Stephen Heppell. Stephen Heppell is a leading educator and global consultant, ‘architect’ of 21st century learning spaces and engaging and distinguished guest speaker from UK. I wrote another post about the seminar at Technoscience.
One of the exciting examples of learning strategies using web2.0 tools was this YouTube video of Japanese multiplication. Many in the audience were left pondering “How does it work?” and spent time scratching intersecting lines on their serviettes! Your learning task today is to practise five long multiplication problems using this method and then try to explain to your partner how it works. Go to the video and leave a comment about whether you think it is a good method for long multiplication.
Your homework tonight is to ask an adult if they know any maths tips and tricks to make mental arithmetic easier. One tip I learnt from a market vendor was that 88% of 25 is the same as 25% of 88, which is an easier task to calculate. It works for all percentages – Why is this so?