When I was completing the readings for this blog post, I kept thinking back to my childhood. I remember how my mother always takes every opportunity to share knowledge with me. For example, when I asked her to give me ten candies instead of two, she prompted me to think about how many twos are there in a ten. When I managed to calculate that on my own, she asked me to think about dividing the ten candies evenly among my four friends. I was only four years old at the time, but she has opened my eyes to simple mathematical calculations.
What I think she has done was to motivate me by creating interest or curiosity about the topic and making the learning process relevant to me. As a child, I was certainly more interested in candies than in math. At the same time, she did not want me to eat too many candies, which can be bad for my health. However, instead of refusing, she directed my attention away to solving a complex problem. We have to bear in mind that multiplication and division are considered difficult concepts for a child to grasp. The satisfaction I have obtained from accurately solving the puzzle was far greater than the reward of more candies. I believe that she has done a great job in motivating me to learn.
The division problem, as can be seen from my example, is far more difficult than the multiplication problem, because ten is non-divisible by four unless you use decimals or fractions, which I was not exposed to prior to this exercise. Therefore, after I tried to explain to her that I would give each friend two-and-a-half candies, she introduced the idea of decimal to me. I think what my mother has done was to design learning like a behaviorist. Instead of stopping at the number of twos in a ten, she reinforced my idea of multiplication and division with a follow-up prompt. Those were not the only two questions she has asked. In the subsequent year, she would constantly prompt me to think about solving mathematical problems whenever possible. Whenever we came across a situation involving numbers, she would reinforce my habit of learning by asking questions and providing me with constructive feedback to improve. During that one year, I learned about decimals, fractions, percentages, and many other concepts. Therefore, I believe that it is a great way of learning design to help unleash the potential of a learner.