Tips on using the method of creative learning in learning mathematics

This article provides a set of tips for raising your awareness of learning styles as a major factor in how children learn. These tips are adapted from the resources listed at the end of this article.

The tips are based on the Dunn & Dunn Learning Styles Model developed by Professors Rita and Kenneth Dunn to assist the New York State Department of Education in improving the effectiveness of instruction for students not demonstrating sufficient progress. The model is based on 20 elements, divided among five categories (called stimuli in the model), that affect learning. Use of the model has been statistically proven to improve student performance.

The model's five stimuli are environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological. A nice illustration of the stimuli and elements is here. A very similar model, the Learning Styles Pyramid Model is illustrated here.

The first half of the tips are not specific to Math and apply to a broad range of learning situations. The second half are Math-specific.

1. Ask your child how he learns best
2. Notice whether your child learns better in the morning, afternoon, or evening
3. Introduce a lesson by relating its content to your child's life
4. Use anecdotes and stories to convey the practical relevance of lessons
5. Use humor, songs, poetry, cartoons, drama and color to capture attention and stimulate receptivity and learning
6. Use pictures, drawings, graphs, illustrations, and charts to engage the visual sense
7. Allow flexibility in lighting (natural, bright, soft, dim, incandescent vs. fluorescent)
8. Allow flexibility in seating arrangement (experiment with casual and relaxed seating)
9. Encourage use of white boards, bulletin boards, outside areas, and large floor space for your child to demonstrate what he is learning
10. Notice whether the room is too cold or too warm for your child
11. Try incorporating soft background music into the learning environment (with no lyrics to distract)
12. Notice whether your child prefers to work alone, in a group, or with adult or authority figures
13. When working in groups, encourage a 60 second break every 15 minutes to review with others, what the children just learned
14. Explore with your child if he learns best while snacking
15. For learning about numbers and operations try counters, Cuisenaire rods, blocks, chips, abaci, wooden cubes, and counting sticks
16. For more advanced learners, try number lines, charts, computers, and calculators
17. Use card and board games and let your child create his own games
18. Encourage your child to create his own word problems to provide a context for what he 's learning as well as to support his computation
19. In early algebra lessons, start with tables and graphs to show relevance of the material
20. Use geometric models, geoboards, rectangular dot paper, geoblocks, tiles, tangrams, and mirrors to sketch and record shapes
21. Have kids learn about points, lines, angles and other geometric ideas by using their hands and arms to illustrate the ideas. This can be especially fun if there is a group of kids to illustrate these ideas together.
22. Support learning of measurement through instruments: rulers, meter sticks, tape measures, trundle wheels, graduated beakers, measuring cups and spoons, kitchen and bathroom scales, thermometers, timers, clocks, and protractors
23. Try having your child work out a problem on a white board and see if having him stand makes a difference
24. Encourage your child to talk about what he learned, give feedback, and show him how to apply what he has learned to his life
25. Use story books to teach Math concepts such as time, money, measurement, and problem-solving
26. Teach about data analysis, probability, and statistics through newspaper graphics, newspapers, and charts. Also, use dice, coins, cards, colored cubes, chips, spinners, graph paper, squares, calculators, and computers.

I hope when our children no longer allergic to aftermath read this article , and to the parents this is a reference to educate their children to like mathematics .

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Games in Learning

The Games in Learning project focuses on how game play, game study, game development and game innovation can be used to improve student learning outcomes.
The project includes workshops, practicums, a conference and research and development.

Why games in learning?

Digital games already play an important role in many students' lives. In the 2006 financial year, Australians spent more than $1 billion on digital game hardware and software.
Purposefully selected games blended with carefully constructed learning experiences can be used to improve student learning outcomes.
They can improve student learning because they:

• open up opportunities that would be otherwise unavailable or too costly or too dangerous to make available to students
• require students to exhibit behaviours such as self-monitoring, pattern recognition, problem recognition and problem solving at a deep level, principled decision-making, qualitative thinking and superior short-term and long-term memory
• engage students.

The best games engage students by being:

• challenging, complex and scaffolded
• immersive - they provide an interactive virtual play environment
• goal-oriented (eg. Make the world a better place, be a hero)
• fast-paced
• able to offer immediate feedback
• story-based
• customisable - students can make it their own
• a way to connect with people.

Significant student learning can also take place through designing and developing games. Designing and developing games can:

• build students' story telling skills
• encourage cooperative learning
• engage students in problem solving and higher order thinking
• encourage planning and reflection
• be a multi-disciplinary exercise - developing a good game can involve composing music, script writing, story development, physics, visual arts, spatial arts and much, much more
• introduce students to programming (Programming is a key skill necessary for the 21st century. To prepare students for 21st century lives, we must extend their programming abilities)
• encourage students to consider a career in the games development industry (The Australian games development industry is growing at a fast rate. It is amounting to revenues of $110 million. 37 per cent of Australia's digital games industry permanent employees are based in Queensland.)

Learning intentions

The program seeks to:

• develop, guide and support networks of teachers around a number of games in learning focus areas
• identify future (through research and best-practice) focus areas for digital game-based learning.

The focus areas for 2007-2008 are Machinima, using game-play and game-study in the middle school to increase student learning outcomes, building games and virtual worlds.

Program structure

Program elements include:

• three-day games in learning practicums
• games in learning email list
• workshops
• games in learning conference
• games in learning reference group
• games in learning web community.
• research and development into virtual worlds.

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Showcase Education : engaging educational resources made easy

A selection of simple educational resources for you to adapt for particular projects for younger pupils.
Older pupils can also use Opus for general curriculum tasks or for specific qualifications such as DiDA. For the working files to these publications visit our Resource section.

	Water Cycle Animation
	A small animation of the water cycle intended to illustrate the use of the tween animation as a way of animating processes. Made with Opus Creator for output in Flash format. NOTE: set the publish option to "scale to fit" when publishing to use the animation at a larger size.
	play online files for editing
	Europe
	A geography project providing an introduction to the concept of Europe and its main countries.
	download
	Primary School Maths
	A simple maths quiz with drag and drop answers. You could easily extend this to more complex questions.
	download

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Educational Software for Learn With Fun

School software are created to effectively teach kids or even adults courses of choice either as a classroom supplement or as an educational source for self learning. It is an innovative learning tool that can effectively transfer information in a unique enjoyable way.

For classroom purposes, having school software may be a major expenditure for teachers. With the wide collection of different education software available, it is critical that you are choosing the right ones. Is it easy to finish the course by themselves or does it need help guides that would aid them through the course?

It is also critical for effective learning that the navigation is simple and easy to comprehend. Some might cost a little higher but offers a broad curriculum that displays the learning curve. Natural Motivation.

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