Keystone Magazine Learning the Keystone Way 2015-2016 EN | Page 13

Bingo gave students the con-
ventional practice needed in
Math in an innovative way. Ms.
Heaton also used more crea-
tive approaches to ensure that
her students understood alge-
bra concepts thoroughly. She
introduced UNO, a card game
played based on patterns. This
not only helped students get
familiar with algebra concepts
and patterns, but they also en-
joyed learning it. Ms. Heaton is
sure that her students’ under-
standing of algebra concepts
are well grounded from the
excited discussions she heard
during their game: “It was great
to see the students so active in
their game, discussing the cards
played, reminding each other
about concepts when the game
couldn’t move forward. Though
playing the game was noisy,
their discussions were music to
my ears.”
able to solve questions from
a textbook but also recognize
that the same problems could
be presented differently yet
require the same solution. This
is Ms. Heaton’s way of challeng-
ing the students’ way of think-
ing by presenting the same
problems from different angles.
So, there may be a formula to
understanding Math better and
deeper after all.
This is not to say that Ms.
Heaton, like most teachers at
Keystone, does not use tradi-
tional teaching approaches. It
is about striking the right bal-
ance. Students still have to be
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