Teachers’ Aptitude is a Key Factor in Addressing Fear of Maths at School Level, Says CBSE’s Controller of Examinations
Bangalore: Fear of mathematics among school students is an area of concern and CBSE is taking a number of initiatives to make maths learning more interesting and enjoyable at school level, said Dr Sanyam Bhardwaj, Controller of Examinations, CBSE. Dr. Bhardwaj was speaking at the felicitation ceremony for the winners of India Maths Day, a quiz tournament organised by maths learning app Countingwell.
“Good teachers with their right aptitude and attitude can play a big role in alleviating the fear of maths as a subject among school children. We are therefore working on capacity building for maths teachers towards helping them inculcate the aptitude and interest for the subject, and this is where new age software or apps like Countingwell can also play a supporting role,” Dr. Bhardwaj said.
He also mentioned that CBSE has introduced maths at two levels, Basic and Standard Maths, in order to encourage maximum students to learn at least the basics of maths even if they are not interested in pursuing it later. “Of the 23 lakh candidates who had taken maths for their Class X examinations last year, 40% had opted for basic maths. Even for 13 lakh Class XII students, over 7 lakh took basic maths,” Dr. Bhardwaj said.
“Our New Educational Policy lays emphasis on enhancing mathematical thinking at the foundational stage amongst the children. We have to prepare our children to be independent learners and good decision makers. [Self-learning] apps like Countingwell prepare the children to be self-motivated, become good observers and start taking independent decisions, while helping them take away their fear around the subject,” said Mrs. Anita Sharma, Principal of SD Public School, and Member of NCERT’s General Council.
In December, Countingwell had organised a national mathematics quiz under ‘India Maths Day’ to celebrate and mark the birth anniversary of the revered Indian mathematician, S Ramanujan. Over 10,000 students of classes 6-10 from 150 schools and across 1,150 cities and towns in India participated in the quiz. The 41 winners were felicitated by Dr. Bhardwaj at yesterday’s event.
Nirmal Shah, cofounder of Countingwell said, “We organised the India Maths Day Quiz competition to not just honour the well-known mathematician S. Ramanujan but also to bring the spirit of passion around Mathematics for students. We are exhilarated at the tremendous response we received for the competition and thank every participant, school and student. Congratulations to all the winners and participants and their teachers.
Countingwell’s mission is to make every child fall in love with mathematics without any fear or anxiety around the subject as it is the foundation for any career path that they may choose in their future. We also want the teachers to benefit with this powerful tool by helping their students reinforce learning through a personalised effort.”
The Countingwell app can be downloaded from Apple’s App store or Google Play. It uses a subscription-based model for its learning modules. The app’s pedagogy and content is designed to help children in middle school and above develop higher order thinking skills.
It uses formative assessments to identify learning gaps and help children fill them through its daily ‘20-minutes maths workout’ model.