Once you have got the hang of a number of tables you can select the speed test and choose the tables you want to practice getting quicker at. If you have forgotten any answers, just go back to the 'all tables in sequence' page and practice them again thoroughly before trying again. First you can practice the multiplication facts in sequence and once you have got the hang of that you can practice all the sums in random order for each table. “I find it interesting that the multiplication table, with its common pressure ‘to be learnt’, has peppered all my years as a student and mathematics teacher, yet it was not until recently that I became aware of the treasures I had missed, grouped together in one such cache! It brought no new mathematics to me, but the surprise that there was so much within the confines of the old, obvious, culturally accepted dull tradition – that did teach me a lesson … One may do it by simply issuing an invitation to students to ‘look for patterns'” (page 22-23).Choose the table you want to practice from the following. “The traditional multiplication table can provide entry points into many viable studies using an initial situation known to every teacher and valuable for every student challenges and patterns for all tastes, interests and grades, to be tackled lightly or penetrated deeply connections to many curriculum topics traditionally considered isolated from each other” (page. Although the article is older now, his words of wisdom about the place of the multiplication table in learning multiples, I believe, is still relevant today: I was reading an article The Multiplication Table: To Be Memorized or Mastered? by John Trivett from 1980 as I prepared this blog. Multiples are a starting place from which to jump forward into the wonderful world of mathematical thinking. The basics are important, but they are just that, basic.
Our job as mathematics educators is to create thinkers, not calculators. Technological advances means that students need to be problem solvers, problem finders, and be flexible knowledge holders – not regurgitators of knowledge. This type of thinking does not come from rote learning multiples, it comes from understanding the concept of multiplication.Įducation has changed over the years, and teachers are great at innovating and adapting to meet the needs of both their students, and the world into which they will live. These are higher order thinking skills in relation to multiples – but this is what we are looking for when we think about being proficient in mathematics, or for students to be working mathematically. Or they might say, I could try 2 in each row, because 16 is an even number that can be counted by twos”. Students who understand multiples, should immediately be able to say “It can’t be 5 in each row, as 16 is not a multiple of 5″. A student with well-developed conceptual skills related to multiples would straight away rule out 5. I then ask, is there another way to put the tiles in equal rows? Many students start to guess, 1, 2, 3, 5, in each row? They try these ideas out as using trial and error with the tiles, some work and others do not. I have a number sense assessment that uses the number 16, and one of the questions relates to making an array with 16 tiles: How could I divide 16 tiles into equal rows? Most students make a four x four array first. This may seem obvious, but to young children it isn’t.