One tricky hedgehog trashed tiny Homer’s magical buttons.
This was a phrase a Gr 6 student designed to help himself remember the order of the place values.
The first letter of each word the phrase, O, T, H, T, T, H, M, and then B stand for Ones, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Ten thousand, Hundred thousand, the Millions, and then the Billions.
In the last post, one of the ways to spot a creative thinker in math is when kids make up their own symbols and rules as they construct meaning in their understanding of mathematics.
“One tricky hedgehog trashed tiny Homer’s magical buttons” and “Some old horses can always hear their owners approaching” are both examples of that.
Guess what “Some old horses can always hear their owners approaching” represents! Take the first letter of each word and it is SOH-CAH-TOA, the acronym high school and college students use to remember the primary functions in trigonometry.
This “horses” phrase was shared by one of my college students, who was studying mathematics applications in his architectural technology program.
From elementary school learners to post-secondary mathematics students, I believe that every student is creative in his/her own way and has the potential to be a creative thinker in math one way or another.
Other characteristics of a potentially creative thinker in math include:
Having a desire to improve the structure of a solution
Speculating what would happen if a particular part of the problem is changed
Generalizing particular results from observing similar patterns
Having the belief that every problem has a solution
As teachers and parents, how to we nurture mathematical creativity?
Research tells us that creativity is about
problem solving
open-ended thinking
self-expression
questioning
seeing relationships
invention
originality
Creativity often requires overcoming pre-established mindsets and exploring ideas outside of a person’s “content-universe”, on other words, what a person already knows. Sounds simple, but these are likely the most limiting factors in the growth of creativity. Some people might argue that kids are more creative because their mindsets are less fixed than adults’, thus it’s easier for them to “think outside of the box”. This is not necessarily true.
The common thread is that, for anyone, creativity occurs when some things are allowed. The recipe? Simply put:
time + space
This means that an individual needs to be allowed time and space for reflection, incubation for ideas, and curiosity.
A lot of teachers ask “how to we teach curiosity?”
Experts say that this is the wrong question to ask. According to a TED talk, the right question should be “how do we not eliminate curiosity?” Curiosity is innate, which means that we are all born with it. We are naturally curious beings. Allowing play and exploration helps us stay curious and creative. I think that mathematical curiosity is not that different.
Here are ways to allow creativity and curiosity to flourish in math learners:
Incorporate games as activities that are part of the learning process
Incorporate math puzzles as a small part of the lesson
Ask open-ended questions (questions that could have multiple answers. For example, what number is greater than 1000, is even, and has one zero as a digit?)
Allow students to create math questions or puzzles
Allow students to create their own rules (For example, a Grade 4 student created a new operation called “blek”, which is represented by the swirl symbol, such that when 3 “blek” 4 = (3+5) x 4
Written by Mandy Lam
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