Scratch - tighten math, develop self-control

People who can’t fall asleep in any way and try in vain to do this in front of the TV, probably noticed for a long time that for some reason the most interesting programs are played at night. Yes, indeed, during the daytime “... the TV is like a toilet, but not us into it, but from it to us” (unfortunately I could not find the author of the quote, but someone who had previously read the Hacker magazine might have experienced deja vu). But at night, just flipping through the channels, you can stumble upon something really interesting. That is how I came across a film about the Dunedin study . I watched the film without blinking. And when the authors of the study said that they had found out what the success of the child in the future most of all depends on, he even got up. It turns out - the fundamental factor in the success of a child (any person) is self-control!

Once, I myself had serious problems with self-control and self-control, therefore, after watching it I remembered, thought, analyzed for a very long time. And then, suddenly I thought: if this same self-control is such an important character trait, then can it be possible to develop it with the children purposefully? Need to try!

And I tried it. Who cares what happened, please, under the cat.

A little bit about the conditions of the experiment

It just so happened that I became a teacher. I used to say to old acquaintances that for me it was something like dolphin therapy, but now I have begun to take training very seriously. I teach guys to program in Scratch. In general, there was no need to search for experimental subjects for a long time - sixth graders became them.

At the beginning of the school year, I had an introductory conversation with them, in particular, that in our school (and in fact not only ours) there is a significant bias towards the humanities, and everything that is related to mathematics turns out with a creak. They talked about self-control, they especially liked the story about the experiment with marshmallows. In general, they voted almost unanimously for my proposal to tighten math and develop self-control.

Preparing for the experiment

In the sixth grade, children in mathematics begin to give addition, and then multiplication of positive and negative numbers. And if for us it’s as simple as that, then for them it’s a brain explosion. No, then everything seems to be fine, but the errors associated with these simple rules last an amazingly long time.

In such a situation, training is needed. So - you need a simulator. Therefore, we programmed it. The essence of the simulator, I think, is clear from the picture at the beginning of the article - the cat sets an example, and our task is to solve it correctly.

The script is pretty simple.



However, to create it, you still need to have some knowledge and skills: variables, concatenation, i / o, conditions, cycles, and work with all this, of course. Again I want to remind you that sixth graders are children. What seems to us so elementary in programming is sometimes not entirely obvious to them. In fact, with all of the above, we worked in the fifth grade, so in the first lesson we just remembered everything well, trained, and that’s all.

In the next lesson, we again did the simulator. Why again? We don’t save small projects at all, for two reasons: “repetition is the mother of learning,” and it’s also a good opportunity to see how quickly everything turns out when you are “in touch”. Actually, in this lesson, work with self-control began.

Final and unconditional victory

Before the game, you need to explain the rules, in this case, purely mathematical and the guys are completely unfamiliar. Moreover, in this experiment they had to be explained so that even a first grader would understand them. The fact is that if you explain the rules at least a little superficially, the student can say his favorite "I did not understand" or "I do not understand this." But if you explain the rules in the most detailed way, then the only reason for their misunderstanding will be poor behavior, which is the result of the lack of self-control.

When I started to explain that adding up positive and negative numbers is actually moving along a coordinate beam that has a negative area. That “minus” is a movement to the left, “plus” is a movement to the right, and the numbers themselves are the number of steps. When we made out a bunch of examples. When even the weakest students took out the leaves and began to try something. There were always students, by the way, far from stupid, who at that time did everything they wanted, but just did not listen. The girls could braid each other’s hair, the boys tried to catch Wi-Fi, some openly “spied” in the phones, or just whispered whispering about something. I did not bother them at all.

When the analysis of the rules was over, I announced the task - to defeat the cat with a score of 25: 0. Most of all, of course, such a task did not suit those who did not delve into anything at all. Those who delved in were not particularly happy either. But I already had pre-prepared arguments:

• You perfectly studied the rules (you had the opportunity to study them, but you were engaged in “left” affairs, and the one who delved into it understood);
• You can use pens and leaflets if you doubt the correctness of what you have counted in your mind;
• Two or even three of you are sitting at computers, so your task is to work together, not to lose your temper, not to get angry, not to be offended, not to waste time arguing, and to make your own arguments on the same notes;
• To get the top five, you need to control every step that you take, control everything that happens to you, not be distracted and not lose your attention;
• You have enough time to complete the task;
• Well, if it doesn’t work, then for a script that works without errors, you simply get a four.

We are hindered by the flaws of character

After the first such lesson, there were another 5-6 of them. At each lesson, the examples given by the cat became harder and harder. And I must say, self-control is an incredibly complex thing.

Only a few, mainly those to whom mathematics is very easy, quickly completed tasks. I did this with them - increased the range of numbers and forbade the use of drafts, having previously shown some tricks for mental counting. Therefore, the only thing that bothered them was the noise made by their classmates. Not distracted and trying to keep in mind the intermediate calculations is very difficult. Moreover, if the answers counted in the mind of the partners did not agree, then everything had to be re-counted so as not to make mistakes.

The second group is the largest. These are impulsive guys, accustomed to doing first and then thinking. Moreover, failure, especially when the loss occurs at a score of 23: 1, is met by a violent explosion of emotions: from aggressive anger to bitter tears. Moreover, the most interesting thing is that the four of them have already been guaranteed. It was possible until the end of the lesson to just sit, do nothing, get a four (the script works after all) and just leave. But losing, having calmed down a little, they started again. Losing again, again an explosion of emotions and so on in a circle. It was with this group that I had to work very closely.

After several failures, they took the comments a little more seriously and began to understand very well that they needed to control some traits of their character very seriously. In general, I just gave advice and helped them make sure that these tips can help.

Tips are extremely simple:

• If this is impulsiveness, then - "just take your time, do not enter the answer in the first 4-5 seconds, during this time you will most likely see your own mistake";
• If it’s a fear to make a mistake, then “give the first 4-5 examples all the attention and carefully write down each step of the calculations, use methods that can be slow, but more visual, test yourself. All this is incredibly slow, but true. Soon everything will turn out much faster ”;
• If it’s all the same indifference, then - “at that rate you will soon begin to be satisfied not with the four, but with the three, then the two. Even if it doesn’t start, you still understand that 500 rubles is better than 400, and those who received 5 rather than 4 are more likely to take a job. We rest at home, and here we fight for a decent life ”

These were the most frequent tips. Although, after the first lesson, I climbed onto Wikipedia and looked at what are the good and bad character traits . And while the guys were solving examples, they could be well watched, approached and shown how to better cope with a variety of shortcomings. Most often, the tips worked.

Yes, fours, by the way, were enough, but 99% of the guys tried to the last.

conclusions

In the last classes, the working behavior of all became almost the same - a calm, measured solution to examples. Why waste energy on something extra? They decided not as robots, but as quite normal children. Moreover, they understood before me that self-control does not at all mean compulsory compulsion of oneself to anything. Self-control is the performance of, perhaps, not the most pleasant and not the most interesting work, but the work, with which, like everything else, can be associated with quite a positive and good mood.

I am not at all an outstanding psychologist and teacher, so draw your own conclusions. But for myself, I realized that moving in this direction was quite useful and promising. I realized that in fact, I was rather superficial in teaching and management, in children and adults. Yes, and to myself, too.