An Engineer's View of Conceptual Number Sense

I'm wondering if this a response to something. I don't understand the purpose of this. This seems like something intended for elementary school students. Am i missing something?

I agree.

It also seems to me that this perceived intended group would be much better served by books... paper, ink, pictures... than a blog. Youngsters (I feel) are overwhelmed with gadgets already; I see little sense in adding to the electronic cacophony.

Mr. Larry, can you visit with us some more about this?

You are right on! it is ment for the earliest of student learning. It is in response to my Great Granddaughter's Kindergarten teacher telling parents that she is often asked for help in learning numbers sense - her response was that it would include five with no other explanation. As a crossing guard I use the third person as i speak to students I cross. They represent all ages - including pre schoolers walking with their older brothers or sisters. They all including parents get a kick out of "Thumbs up Friday" The Chinese from the beginning of time recognized that with finger counting, There is four before, five digits replaced with thumbs up. The 2nd five, coming up, will have thumbs up, and then the down four fingers: 5+1=6; 5+2=7; 5+3=8 and 5+4=9. The value of this will be made clear when 7+8 = 5+2+5+3 = 10+2+3=15.

Finally: In ignorance I never found out how to get in touch this administration who seemed to be implying I might have a separate blog for tutoring to engineering parents who should be disappointed at what their children or grand children are learning in Public Schools. Conceptual learning should be more useful to an Engineer.

Mr. Larry is my pen name and not meant to be self promotion

enough said

Thanks for responding!

Mr. Larry

OK,

I get the finger counting, I guess.

I don't get the significance of the 5 pennies. It leads nowhere. Hopefully that's in the next lesson?

The 1st coin to be exchanged is a nickel for five Penney's.

The 2nd five leads to six as 5+1, seven as 5+2, 8 as 5+3 and 9 as 5+4

when you add seven and eight, you are really adding 5+2& 5+3 which is 5+5=10 & 2+3 = 5, which is 10+5=15. Obviously as an Engineer, you were never trained with Conceptual Learning
+

Larry,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's no way a small child will ever grasp this, needlessly complicated exercise.

Telling a child that, "adding 5+2& 5+3 which is 5+5=10 & 2+3 = 5, which is 10+5=15." is a bit over the top. You expect a child to grasp this?

Here's one for you: Hii ni kupoteza. Si kwa Childern.

Aside from determining if a small child can follow simple directions, I see no logic, nor use, for such an exercise.

Hello Larry:

Why don't you tell us more about the main idea, what is this concept, the sense of conceptual numbers. I don't think you're posting here by mistake.

Now I'd like to make a comment about how you refer to yourself, please don't take ofense but, not even Yahve says: "Yahve says...".

Speaking in third person, with the plus of adding "Mr." sounds to me a little like self worship.

Yahlasit's spoken

From all the responds I have perceived the following:

Most have no connection to the lack of conceptual learning, even though they are active in an Educational Blog for Engineers. Having received a BSEE and spent 16 years in working in the Technology wing, (Sprague Special Products) and another 1 years with the Joint Venture, (Sprague Tucson and another 35 years with Burr Brown Research Corporation, (Now Texas Instruments).

Upon retirement in 2000, I developed a Passion, (a destined role) to make an Impact on Public Education. There is a political effort to throw money at Education in the form of reteaching teachers the subjects they are teaching under the flag "Core Curriculum". I realize the audience is world wide, but to varying degree the problem is mostly political to the extent there seems to be a "one world focus".

My focus is that we don't need to throw money at Education we can accomplish more by throwing wisdom and see what sticks on the wall. It has been said the i am barking up the wrong tree and should be writing a book - been there - done that as a co-author of "SAT Math Study Guide" with Victor Valey, a graduate from Oxford with a Masters degree in Math. No publisher will touch it because we are not in position of requiring students to buy it.

My plan is to link parents who want more of their students than they are getting with this blog. Emphasis is on how, why, explore and understand. Am I still on the wrong site?

Mr. Larry

Most have no connection to the lack of conceptual learning

No, we still just plain don't understand the purpose of your post exactly!

Can you please elaborate as to what its purpose is, as although it may seem obvious to you we only have the information in the thread to go on, and it isn't really enough. I cannot find this Blog you mentioned either (which may explain a few things making the purpose of this forum thread clearer).

Is this perhaps a request to CR4 admins for you to start a running blog on CR4? If so this can be done under your CR4 user profile page (under 'Blogs on CR4') without the need to get Blog creation approval from other CR4 members. Posting in the questions section and not the blog section may be confusing people as to the real purpose of your forum thread.

Can you please provide more information for us.

Larry, You really ought to take your work over to YouTube in video form. If your videos are entertaining enough and/or useful enough, they will get seen by thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, including students and parents of students.

Take a look at the amazing videos done by Vi (Victoria) Hart. They are extremely entertaining, though a bit fast-paced, I think. Her videos are intended for high school students or people who've had at least a high-school level of education in math. You could aim your videos at the youngest math learners. Here's a link to some of her videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart