The Problem in Teaching Mathematics

I chuckled when I stumbled upon this article. I’ve known this based on my five years of teaching. And I’m sure that my colleagues would agree.

Word Problems Fail Math Students

Honestly, I have no problems teaching the kids how to compute (except for a handful of students who were absent, physically or mentally). But I have noticed that the students are having problems in reducing word problems in mathematical form. And this is something that cannot really be taught: it is an acquired skill. The best I can do is to give them lots of examples to show them how it is done. But this isn’t the best method since you need lots of time for exercises. And some students nowadays will not bother trying to figure out the problem on their own. They will just post it somewhere and someone with plenty of time on their hands will do it for them. *sigh*

If you guys have any bright ideas on how to make students learn how to solve word problems, just leave a comment.