HOW A CHILD LEARNS EFFECTIVELY
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
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HOW A CHILD LEARNS EFFECTIVELY
Brain research has shown that when children in their formative years are given opportunities to see, touch, and explore a concept, it enriches their learning process, fires more neural connections and uses all areas of their“ growing brain.”“ Brain neurons that fire together, wire together.”— Sousa The importance of the hand is at the heart of Montessori education. Montessori strongly felt that the hand and the brain must develop in harmony. The hand reports to the brain, the brain guides the hand, and the cycle continues, resulting in the development of the intellect. Manipulatives are ubiquitous in many math programs, but their efficiency for learning may be inconsistent. In a Montessori classroom, there is a vast array of inviting, color-coded, sequential, and geometrically designed materials. Lessons are scaffold, explicit in instruction, and move from the concrete to the abstract.
A prime example would be the“ number rods,” one of the earliest materials to teach counting and the order of numbers. The three-year-old is given the opportunity to see, feel, and assemble numbers from 1 to 10. The child experiences that the longest rod is 10 times as long and 10 times as heavy as the one rod, that five rods is half the length … and so on, recognizing and experiencing the idea of quantity as a whole. The rods are all perceptually identical( color, texture, thickness) except for the relevant attributes( number of segments and length).
Let’ s consider the basis of our numerical system: the decimal system, which is presented graphically and sensorial to the child. Units are represented with a single golden bead. A 10 is a bar of 10 beads strung together, hundreds are squares made up of ten bars, and a thousand is a cube comprised of 10 hundred squares. Each is barically weighted. A child holding a unit bead in one hand, and a thousand cube in the other is given a sensory impression in contrast to a one-dimensional picture of a worksheet. Using this material for operations in math such as addition and multiplication, the child internalizes how the process works.
The hands-on math materials spiral in sophistication and complexity in the elementary classroom spurred by“ History of Math,” one of the Five Great Lessons. In the lower elementary class, students are immersed in math, learning 2 and 3 digit multiplication into the millions, finding equivalent fractions by superimposing tiles, moving into more complex mathematics such as geometry and algebra, and creating their own math portfolio. Children develop a strong work ethic and a love for math, while working collaboratively with their multi-aged peers. To my last piece of material( in the 6-9 year old classroom) This piece of material is used primarily to teach division, and the process of division. Imagine working with a partner dividing 34,786 by 34 … one child is responsible for the share of tens, while the partner then does the distribution of ones alternatively. The concentration, the teamwork, the process, and the dialogue between the children is always amazing to hear and watch – moving from the concrete to the abstract.
The brain is a muscle that needs to be used, each part a specialist: the visual, the auditory, the language – all subsets that are hard wired from birth, but when you use all of them together you are creating a multiplicity of complex synaptic connections between brain cells, producing an intricate architecture of neural networks that lead to higher thinking and problem solving.
Montessori materials in all subject areas engage all four lobes of the cerebrum simultaneously. These materials promote active learning and discovery, and have a feedback of self-monitoring and correcting. The materials and prescriptive lessons stimulate the learning process and enhance long-term retention for the students. I see it, I hear it, I feel it, I do it … now I understand. As Eric Jensen states,“ If learning is what we value, then we ought to value the process of learning as much as the result of learning.”
Fiona Guiser is a teacher in a 6-9 year old classroom at the Montessori Centre Academy in Glenshaw.
Hampton | Fall 2016 | icmags. com 25