Understanding why Math is used

Math is one form of communication that is used to express meaning and create understanding. Although we think of math as a way to help us solve problems, it is also used to 'talk' to one another.

Let's think about the different ways that math ideas can be communicated to people.

Math can be described in words by descriptive words, concepts, examples, and word problems. Many words we use in our daily live can summarize a math concept such as: few, calculate, equal, less, quantify, or estimate.

Graphs are often used in the media to display a large amount of data in a way that is easy to visualize. Graphs can misrepresent data so it is important to truly understand what you are looking at.

Math symbols are common and provide an easy method to display data. Some symbols common to us are:+=/:#()

Math objects are a visual way to display data. We start learning basic math objects at a young age when we start learning geometric shapes.

Inductive Reasoning is reaching conclusions from specific examples

Generalizing includes making broad statements about large amounts of data.

There always seems to be an exception to the rule.

Deductive Reasoning is conclusions based on facts.

Science often used deductive reasoning as it asks you to think about what you are experiementing on then creating the conclusion from what you learned.

Again, science likes to see the world in black or white, in yes or no.

Deductive Reasoning also likes to put in a conditional statement that applies the 'rules' to the theory.

Math is used to understand how problems are solved.

You must know you are working to solve the problem, you cannot stumble upon the answer!

We have to teach students what problem-solving is and the steps in order for them to be successful and practice them. If they are taught and practiced at a young age, they will be better equipped to use them as an adult.