1510 Post #6: Simple Subtraction

I know that many of my posts have been involved in one way or another with differentiated instruction. Part of me believes this is so because until I started my journey as becoming a teacher, I did not even think about differentiated instruction. I was not for or against many methods for mainstream ideas and how to get to the same place using different paths. I grew up in a very vanilla school that taught an idea one way and that was the way we needed to know. If a student had a hard time trying to grasp a concept, they were sent for special help. I do not know what happened in those rooms. Perhaps there they were being introduced to the same concept as I, just in a different way to help them understand.

I love the idea that students are so diverse and keeping teachers on their toes. When we started to discuss the different methods for subtraction, I assumed that it was going to be a short section. I was wrong, the depth that some of the methods goes into seemed to be a little long winded for me. That being said, I can see how that same long winded (to me) could spark that thought in a students mind. Expand using powers of 10. Perform using expanded notation, scratch method, the rules and probabilities; there is so much to what I thought was simple subtraction.


Again, I am going to suggest online game sites for additional help both inside and outside of the classroom. What I have learned in the last few weeks of taking a college math class has been that little in the classroom has stayed the same in regard to math content from the time when I was in elementary school. The changes are for the best and the additional support from both inside and outside of the class should increase the cognition of the student.