Report of Maths Workshop
PANAFSTRAG, Prof.Agwu, Chi Stem Toys Inc, Niward, and Mathematical Association of Nigeria (Lagos State Chapter).
(Saturday 13th January 2018)
Prof.NkechiAgwu gave a welcome remark and explained that this Workshop was to help achieve certain objectives which includes: learning relationships between numbers and letters, applying mathematics to our everyday living, relating maths to culture and things we see around us every day, beauty of mathematics, amongst others.
Opening of the Workshop was done by Prof. Stella Williams who explained the role of teachers in making maths fun for the pupils.She reiterated that maths is part and parcel of our entire lives from cradle to grave, hence we must get it right. She shared several experiences as a Secondary school teacher and University teacher and how we can influence our pupils positively. The session commenced with Self- Introductionby all present at the workshop. Each participant explained their current job roles and what they hoped to achieve at the end of the Workshop.
Prof.NkechiAgwu started off with lessons learnt at the last workshop in 2014 using illustrations on how we can use culture to teach mathematics and science using her visits to the Deji of Akure’s Palace and how everything was triangular indicating Justice, Equity and fairness. She also explained that Gbarisin Abuja/FCT did a lot of things in Circles- from their eating, dancing, etc which connotes certain things in their tribe. Video sharing for further illustrations.
Prof.Agwu explained using beads that there is some form of mathematics/geometry in the arrangements of neck and hand beads. She also ask us to take cognisance of the colours and the arrangements of the colours in the beads pattern which signifies certain things in certain cultures.
She explained that plants and flowers we see every day can be used to teach maths. This includes the shape of the leaves, the veins of the leaves and several other visible characteristics in plants and flowers.
Prof.Agwu explained that Alphabets can be associated to one of the nine non-zero digits and come up with the table below:
ThePythagorean Cipher
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I
J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R
S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z
This table can be used for coding and the participants were able to find number representations for their names and use digital reduction by adding numbers to arrive at a single digit.
The Chairman, Mathematical Association of Nigeria (Mr. RazaqJimoh) gave several tips on how to make maths easy. He gave a wonderful presentation giving tips on effective teaching and the 21st Century Teacher skills which includes Creativity, Communication, Critical Thinking, collaboration and Cross –cultural skills.
He explained the pyramid of learning stating that demonstration, group discussions, practice and students-teaching one another should be emphasized for learning to be effective.
He reiterated that certain topics should not be taught in isolation eg: squares of numbers and square-roots of numbers should be taught together so that students can understand the relationship between the two.
Using music and culture to memorize some key formulas was also emphasised. He also shared his experience with multiplication table and how we can teach it to students using our fingers. He advised teachers to also join Mathematical Association of Nigeria and groups they can learn from and update their skills from time to time to aid their teaching. Several songs and poems were shared and learnt.
Prof. Stella Williams admonished teachers to be better prepared when going to class and be on time. This will help both parties in the class.
Prof.Agwu also used the pascal’s triangle to analyse relationships between numbers and how we do not need to cram to remember certain things as long as we remember certain characteristics.
Tips were shared on how to make the students more attentive and participatory. This involves more hands-on experience which will get the students more engaged.Teachers came out to illustrate how their bar chart and line charts were drawn up during the exercises given.
Finally, each participant shared what they gained from attending this workshop and how they intend to use it for the benefits of their students. They also shared past experiences they encountered and how they have been able to learn from the Workshop how to deal with these experiences in the future. Some tips include feeding hungry students, cheering the students up, giving out gifts for good performance, and 4Ps-Praise publicly and Punish Privately.
A.S Bello
January 2018.
(See attached participants list)
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