A mix of intuitive bar modeling and abstract algebra to solve word problems, which serves as a bridge from pre-algebraic thinking (hidden in the Singapore bar model method) to formal algebraic thinking (involved in solving an equation).
Many middle school students in Singapore are so fluent in the bar model method that teachers and parents find it hard to wean them from it in order to embrace the algebraic method. As a result, some math educators suggest using the blended or hybrid modeling to make the transition less painful.
by Numerati October 17, 2024
Get the Hybrid Modeling mug.When incorporating Singapore’s bar model method—the problem-solving visualization strategy to tackle word problems—at the elementary school level and its aim to develop students’ pre-algebraic thinking skills (before they are introduced to formal algebra) are not often partially achievable or necessarily correlated in practice.
Wallet-friendly Singapore math textbooks, workbooks, and teachers’ resources on their own doesn’t guarantee problem-solving mastery—bar-modeling orthogonality seems to be a constant in many traditional American classrooms, often because of teachers’ or parents’ faux perception that a foreign math curriculum or publication is harder (or even inferior) than their local inch-deep-mile-wide one.
by Numerati December 5, 2024
Get the Bar-Modeling Orthogonality mug.The mathematical equivalent of a child riding a tricycle before switching to a bicycle, or using a float while learning to swim—using bar diagrams instead of forming algebraic equations to solve word problems.
Bar modeling, which is the heart and soul of the Singapore math curriculum, acts a bridge between elementary (or primary) math and middle school (or secondary) math—where concrete rectangles or bars are used instead of abstract variables for unknown quantities.
by Numerati December 28, 2024
Get the Bar Modeling mug.by CONSPICUOUS. September 23, 2025
Get the corporate meddling mug.When the conscious effort of coming up with an apt model drawing that connects the knowns and unknowns in a math word problem can enhance the readability or elegance of a solution—when a “look-see” proof could arouse an aha! in the problem solver.
If only more math educators were to practice mindful modeling, the number of students or homeschoolers embracing Singapore’s bar model method could potentially increase ten folds in no time.
by Numerati June 11, 2025
Get the Mindful Modeling mug.A redistricting strategy made famous during the period in the late 1980's, when the Democratic Party moved geographic boundaries of an electoral district in California to include predominantly black-populated areas(South Central Los Angeles, Inglewood, Compton) in an effort to concentrate African American voters sporting the popular greasy hairstyle of the day, thus using 'packing' tactics to insure a constituency that would elect congressional representatives who also sported the couch-ruining do. The term for this strategy remained unnamed for nearly 30 years until comedian Adam Carolla coined it on his podcast, “The Adam Carolla Show”(Episode aired November 3, 2015.).
Congresswoman Maxine Waters may believe the science is still out on the morning after pill but she's definitely a student of the science of Jheri curl-mandering. Tracking sales of Soul Glo in order to target the perfect constituency was a flash of genius on the Democratic Party's part.
by griffin_t_a October 19, 2016
Get the Jheri curl-mandering mug.When mathepreneurs see a multi-million dollar business opportunity to provide both resources and training for tens of thousands of seniors who are eager to learn about the “bar model method”—the heart of the Singapore elementary math curriculum—in order to connect and engage with their grandchildren’s and godchildren’s math education.
Publishers and vocational training centers have been pretty slow at taking advantage of the untapped source of revenue offered by the silver bar modeling industry, especially when more seniors are enjoying a longer lifespan in fast-greying Singapore.
by Numerati October 5, 2024
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