Chalkboard and the Pasig Community Learning Hub continue to give tutors helpful teaching methods in Math through Pisara Project: “Hub ang Tulay sa MATHinong Pag-aaral.” This project is a three-part series done every Sunday from May 16th to the 30th. The second week’s topic is Four Basic Math Operations using CRA Approach with Engr. Rachelle Tablan as the speaker.
This seminar focuses on teaching learners an easier way to understand addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, using basic materials that can easily be found at home such as popsicle sticks, straws, bottle caps, candies, and many others. The participating tutors were asked to bring someone from their own household, preferably a young learner, who can join and try out the effectivity of the CRA approach.
The CRA Approach stands for Concrete – Representational – Abstract. This approach is an evidence-based practice in mathematics for students, most especially for students with learning disabilities. It is recommended particularly for the grade school learners and for mathematical concepts related to operations. Students begin by solving problems using concrete objects; once this stage is mastered, they progress to solving the same type of problem with representational drawings; finally, these supports can be removed, and students are able to solve these problems abstractly.
“Hindi lahat ng bata ay mataas yung kanilang multiple intelligence in terms of numericals. Lagi po nating tatandaan na ang bawat tao ay may kanya kanyang kakayahan. Meron pong gifted sa numbers, may gifted sa language, may gifted sa sports… Para po mafill in natin yung gap sa kanilang multiple intelligence, gumagamit po tayo ng mga techniques at isa po dito ay ang CRA approach.”
– Engr. Rachelle Tablan
All of the participants were enjoying Engr. Rachelle’s lessons wherein she incorporated a lot of the materials into teaching the four basic math operations. She started with counting numbers using popsicle sticks and introduced the addition of single digits using pencils. After they easily succeeded in answering the single digits, Engr. Rachel then proceeded with addition to 20, 50, and 100 by using graphics that are appealing to children. The kids who joined were ecstatic with this new method as they can easily grasp addition through it! The tutors were also having a lot of fun since they have observed how participative the learners were with the CRA approach.
After observing the enthusiasm that the participants were showing, Engr. Rachelle proceeded by teaching how to subtract in single digit, subtraction within 20, 50, and 100 through the help of counters or cubes in 10. The technique is called subtraction by taking away. Afterwards, some of the tutors were asked to demonstrate subtracting using the CRA approach with their partner learner.
The CRA approach instructed by Engr. Rachelle continues to amaze tutors and learners as they went on to learn about multiplication and division. Multiplication of single digit was taught by using counters like bottle caps, and beans. Multiplication of 1 digit by two digits were taught through multiplication by place values, regrouping, and partial product strategy.
Division of numbers and division by single counting was demonstrated by skip counting, equal groups, number line, fact families, and array.
Before the workshop concluded, participants were asked about their comments and feedback about the discussion. All of which agreed that CRA approach is a great method to persuade learners to focus on the subject, especially kids with short attention span and little patience with math.
It has been proven in this workshop that this approach taught by Engr. Rachelle Tablan, is substantial and particularly useful to tutors as they now have different techniques and strategies to teach math in a fun and engaging way.
