Developing Mathematic Thinking - Essay Example

How many has he left" may prove more difficult for some beginning students than calculating 5 - 3. Another way to categorise questions is according to the level of thinking they are likely to stimulate, using a hierarchy such as Bloom's taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Bloom classified thinking into six levels: Memory (the least rigorous), Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation (requiring the highest level of thinking). Sanders (1966) separated the Comprehension level into two categories, Translation and Interpretation, to create a seven level taxonomy which is quite useful in mathematics.

As you will see as you read through the summary below, this hierarchy is compatible with the four categories of questions already discussed. The teacher used other students to tackle mathematics hence building confidence in them as this gauges the students' confidence and competence with mathematics tasks. With is kind of an evidence, it is used by the teachers to provide the students with feedback on learning and in turn determine the way students are performing in relation to the outcome.3 The teacher gave a complex sum without developing skills about how to tackle such problems.

The teacher ought to have used the mental strategy where he would have asked the student to solve addition or subtraction problems