The Importance of Gradients in Study
Have you ever tried to take on a new subject but wound up confused and feeling overwhelmed? Your failure didn’t stem from a lack of trying. You ran in to a fundamental study barrier.
Have you ever tried to take on a new subject but wound up confused and feeling overwhelmed? Your failure didn’t stem from a lack of trying. You ran in to a fundamental study barrier.
It’s a basic concept we are familiar with, tackling tasks one step at a time, only progressing to the next thing once we have mastered the current step. It’s essentially Skill Building 101 and when done properly a solid foundation is built and competency is the ultimate result. Conversely, when a gradient has not been mastered and one tries to move along, confusion ensues.
You would never expect to build a second-floor structure if the foundation for the ground floor was incomplete and shaky.
Learning follows the same principle: solid foundation = competency and the basic structure to continue to build upon.
When you find a student having difficulty in math, take a look at the previous step(s) and find out what they missed and get that addressed and fixed up. Problems with division typically trackback to confusions and inability stemming back to multiplication and even subtraction. To focus on handling the division difficulty immediately present is to ignore the earlier source of the difficulty.
This simple approach applies to any subject and creates the solid building blocks necessary to learning, ability, confidence, and competence.