GLIMGifted Learners in Mathematics

The Maths Enrichmenmt Program

Runs for one period per week.

Students are withdrawn from normal classes.

Junior Enrichment Groups

Consist partly of talented achievers and partly of gifted under-achievers.

The emphasis for the last month has been on solving problems and then explaining how they were solved.

Why problem solving?

Greater opportunities for students to develop their own methods.

Hopefully skills learnt in explaining methods are transferred to other topics.

Gifted students are easily identifiable

Why explain?

Methods sometimes required in formal testing.

You need to be able to explain yourself to your peers to be able to work with them.

It helps you understand your own thinking.

The First Two Problems

Use the digits 5,7,9 and 2 once each to make a multiplication problem with the largest possible answer.If each letter stands for a different digit, find all possible solutions for:

BACE ×4 _______ CECDC

Articulating their ideasFind it really difficult to explain how they solve these problems

Unusual methods

How do you know you have the best answer?

Why can’t these guys understand what I am saying?

The Third Problem

Cori the camel lives at the edge of a desert that is 1000km across. She has 3000 bananas to take to market across the desert. She can only carry 1000 bananas at a time and she needs to eat a banana for every km travelled. What is the greatest number of bananas that Cori can get to market?

Solutions and Explanations

Good solutions achieved quickly

Explained and clarified with staff.

Lots of questioning.

Explanations written and rehearsed.

Solutions presented to peers.

Lots of frustrations.

Student A

Drew only one diagram, then a sea of numbers.Experimented with irregular intervals.Was able to write his own explanation with assistance.Some frustration, but I was able to follow his explanation even if his peers could not.Could understand Chatheesha!

Student B

Used lots of diagrams.No concern for scale.Answers arrived at when about half way through written process.I wrote process for him.Arms and legs going everywhere in explanation.Unable to explain full process after many attempts.

Camel variants

Change distance

Change number of bananas carried

Change fuel consumption

Write and solve their own problems

Conclusions

Convinced of need to explain work.

Slow but steady progress.

Possible to get rational solutions without programming.

Time worth spending.

Retention of skills?

Where to from here?