What is Mental Computation?
"the ability to calculate exact numerical answers without the aid of calculating or recording devices" (Reys, 1984).
"a calculation performed entirely in the head, with only the answer written down" (McIntosh, 2004). Mental Computation is an essential mathematical skill (McIntosh, 2004). It is the one most used by people in their every day life, allowing them to successfully calculate and estimate things such as buying and selling goods, weighing food, measuring objects and calculating time to organise events in their day (McIntosh, 2004).
Research shows that early numeracy students have already developed and use a variety of mental computation strategies prior to formal education, however they lack a range of efficient skills (DEECD, 2009). Exposure to a full range of strategies that are able to be applied in many of our daily situations is essential to a successful life. Students need to be taught, explore, question, create, modify and prefer strategies that can be used in any number of situations. They need to be able to use known algorithms to calculate and estimate solutions to written, visual and physical problems. Therefore it is important to explore these algorithms by working with written equations and physical objects. (DEECD, 2009) Over time, through regular use and repetition, students develop the skills to complete the calculations mentally McIntosh, 2004). |
DEECD
"Many children will be able to do mental computations before you teach them written computation" (DEECD, 2009).
JUDY HARTNETT
"...lists of strategies have been derived from studies where computation problems were presented to students and the strategies that the students actually exhibited were analysed and categories emerged." (Hartnett, 2007).
ANN HEIRDSFIELD
"Given the magnitude of research, teachers require a great deal of support accessing and interpreting relevant research to assist them in developing curriculum and practices."(Heirdsfield, 2011).
|
What is the purpose of this website?
Teachers often lack up to date information on current research into mental computation (Hartnett, 2007). The purpose of this website is to provide a list of known strategies based on current research (Hartnett, 2007), provide ideas of how these strategies can be taught and explored by teachers and students, list relevant standards from the Australia Curriculum and provide a list of research and theory from journal articles, mathematical associations and government bodies for further reading.