This is one of the best articles I have read so far. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/GSI_2011.htm
Another nice article: http://www2.math.umd.edu/~jnd/Fractions.html
I keep wondering. Some children understand stuff fast and some don't. The best for the latter category, it seems to me, that one can do is to make sure they practice a lot and with rote learning these students can get higher grades. Unfortunately, these students prepare primarily for an exam and once the exam is over, they forget what they learned because it goes into short term memory. Unless one maps a new knowledge to something else that one already knows, the newly learnt stuff remains an "orphan" and has no roots to remain (in the memory) and soon it goes away.
What then is the point of teaching or learning stuff that remains only in the short term memory? What is the benefit of conducting exams and evaluating students when what is being evaluated has a short validity? Few weeks after the evaluation, the results of evaluations are mostly null and void?
Then why teach or learn which won't go into the long term memory? What should those average and below average students (of a subject) do while learning that subject?
The two links on top should be read with this question in mind.
Comments welcome.
