An Review of \"Visible Thinking in Mathematics\" written by Mr Ammiel Wan (Marshall Cavendish, 2011)


For Students looking for a Resource to help with their Basic Mathematical Knowledge and Concepts!

Review written by Zhou Shicai (http://www.nicklebeetutors.com/) in February 2011


http://www.mceducation.sg/Storage/CoverImageFile/9789810115289.jpg\">

Just to give a rough overview of this new series of assessment/guide books for the benefit for all parents/educators who have queries regarding this new set of books by Mr Ammiel Wan who's now a vice-principle in Rosyth Primary School. Bought the Pri 4A, 5A and Pri 6 version from Popular yesterday. I will focus on the Primary 6 version in this review.

A note before i start, I wish to state that i am in no way affiliated with OnSponge, Visible Maths, Marshall Cavendish or Mr Ammiel Wan. I am just a Maths Educator who wish to share my views on this resource with everyone here.

This book can be considered his 3rd Generation work in \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach in Learning Mathematics\" which Mr Ammiel Wan has been spearheading and refining since 2006 when he first published the popular \"Challenging Problems Made Easy\". He followed up on his early success by teaming up with \"Thinking Maths @ OnSponge\" (which is a education company set up by 2 entrepreneurs) to publish a series of Problem Solving Books (Pri 3 to Pri 6) which uses his set of Heuristics and Concepts to guide student's understanding of the various problem sums and learn how to apply those concepts to conquer problem sums.

As I pointed out before, both \"Challenging Problems Made Easy\" and \"Onsponge\" are focused only on building up the student's thinking skills and procedural learning to tackle Section C / Paper 2 type of problem sums. However, as many educators can attest, a large number of students lack proper understanding of the reasoning behind basic concepts and skills and they would end up memorizing facts and procedures like \"Before you plus 2 fractions together, you must make the denominator the same\" without really understanding why is it so. For very basic questions such as those \"Knowledge Recall\" questions found in section A, this is all well and dandy.

The problem starts when you start loading Problem solving Concepts / Heuristics such as those found in \"On Sponge\" onto such a foundation, the child would be at a loss. This is because he is now surrounded by concepts and thinking skills alien to him but which are essential for problem solving. What they typically do and which i had observed in some of my students when they were using OnSponge under their previous tutors (before they engaged me) is that they would memorize the concept for each particular chapter and keep regurgitating it for each similar question in the same chapter. However they did it without proper understanding of the concepts and when asked by their parents or previous tutors to apply the same concept for a similar question in an exam paper after a couple of weeks, they would look blank and keep insisting that they don't know how to do it.

There are 2 ways to combat this.

The first way is for the Parent or Educator to sit beside the child while he is using \"OnSponge\" or doing other problem solving assessment books and guide him on how to read and understand the context of the problem, think through the proper usage and application of the methods as taught and understand the reasoning on how the various concepts and methods can help you use the facts and information in the question to solve it.

The 2nd way is to start from basics and start getting the child used to a thinking and reasoning based approach rather than a rote -learning approach of learning basic mathematical concepts. This would help the parent or educator to cultivate the child's thinking skills and help direct the student's thought process on key concepts. And in so doing, the student would be better able to integrate the Problem solving concepts and Heuristics as they come along later.

\"Visible Thinking in Mathematics\" is basically the 2nd approach and personally i think its way overdue but nonetheless a welcome addition to my resource of teaching materials.

Below are a number of thoughts about the book :

1) I like the way the chapters are divided into easy to digest sub-chapters which are designed to allow the student to integrate each new concept in a progressive manner and encourage the child's knowledge to spiral upwards and build on top of each other until mastery of the chapter is attained.

2) Also, each sub-chapter is further sub-divided into \"Thinking Platforms\" and \"Mastery Platforms. \"Thinking Platforms\" provides guidance for the student to develop his understanding of the concept by thinking about how the concept can apply to various problems with the same context but different key words or different numerical values. This allows the student to learn by thinking and reasoning about the context of the question rather than simply memorizing methods and concepts. \"Mastery Platforms\" allow the student to practice his newly learnt concepts and skills on various \"Parallel\" questions which has the same context as the examples but which are all slightly different so as to allow the student to understand and integrate the concepts and skills learnt better.

3) The \"Notes\" placed at the end of most thinking platforms provide a valuable tip/resource to the parent or educator on clarifying common misconceptions, areas of difficulties commonly faced by the student, or information on how to make the concept easier to understand by the student.

Overall, i think \"Visible Thinking in Mathematics\" is a good \"Broad-Based\" resource (as compared to \"OnSponge\" which only focuses on Problem Sums) to complement the school's textbook in helping the students master basic and advanced mathematical concepts through both conceptual understanding and critical thinking.

I personally think this would be a good resource for those looking for a assessment book to help them build up their fundamentals while improving their thinking skills and understanding of mathematical concepts. It gels in very well with my own teaching methodology and after a couple of weeks of analyzing the new books and planning on how it will fit into my teaching curriculum, i will provide an update on my review.

Zhou Shicai
Lead Educator
Nicklebee Tutors

Note : This review of \"Visible Thinking in Maths\" was first written in Feb 2011 and has been reproduced above for the benefit of parents who wish to select the best educational materials for their children.

Review of the GetMeThinking Math Books (Ammiel Wan & Steward Tang; Visible Math, 2013)


Recommended for the GEP Math or High Ability Math Student looking for that extra edge in PSLE Maths!

Review written by Zhou Shicai (http://www.nicklebeetutors.com/) in January 2013

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ai2uCiohNlA/UPOfOn4s4iI/AAAAAAAAAYI/-LpbXHsYNKw/s320/getmethinking+book.JPG\">

Hi, This is Zhou Shicai, lead education consultant of NickleBee Tutors and I would like to take this opportunity to share with parents here of a new book published by Mr Ammiel Wan (former Vice-Principle of Rosyth Primary, Author of the popular OnSponge, Challenging Problems Made Easy & Visible Thinking in Math assessment books and who is currently the Principal Consultant at Visble Math).

I have been teaching PSLE & Olympiad Math to GEP and High Ability students for a number of years now. Given my education background and multiple awards in Olympiad level Math Competitions during my Raffles Institution (GEP) days, it is probably no surprise that when I first started out as a Math Educator while still studying as a dental undergraduate in NUS Faculty of Dentistry, i was not impressed with the standards of Math education and teaching methodology amongst teachers and tutors when it came to imparting math problem solving skillsets and concepts across to primary school students.

Hence when Mr Ammiel Wan first published \"Challenging Problem Made Easy\" back in 2006, i found that he brought a fresh approach to guiding students through math problem solving by introducing the idea that Math Problem Solving could be approached from a \"Conceptual\" perspective. He followed up in 2008 by being a consultant in the development of the \"Onsponge\" Math Books which further expanded his conceptual approach and included the tripartite of \"Contextual, Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge\".

After first perusing his Onsponge books back in 2008, I became a firm believer in Mr Ammiel Wan's \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach in Learning Mathematics\" as I shared his belief that most teachers focus so much on \"Procedural\" knowledge that they have lost sight of the original purpose of Problem Solving in Mathematics, which was to promote critical thinking and application of heuristics and problem solving skills. I was rather excited that Mr Ammiel Wan's approach in Mathematical education dovetailed in very well with my own teaching methodology and I began incorporating and adapting elements of his approach into my teaching curriculum.

Of course, there are certain points I have to make before carrying on. I have found it quite strange that school teachers and tutors are still encouraging students to buy Ammiel Wan's \"Challenging Math Problems Made Easy\". Though it was ground-breaking when first published in 2006, it can be considered his first-generational work and much of its content has been superseded by his succeeding works over the past 7 years or so.

Also, though I find the OnSponge Math Books (also involving Mr Ammiel Wan as a consultant) to be one of the better math assessment books in the market with an excellent question bank and some reasonably good worked examples. I found that it's chief failing was that it unwittingly encouraged students (who are not properly guided in the cognitive conceptual approach by their teachers) to memorise a certain concept to use for associated questions and instead of encouraging the students to apply concepts after understanding the context of the question. It instead led to students skimming through the question and deciding, without much understanding and thinking involved, to apply a certain concept just because they have done a similar question previously and if the concept worked for that, it follows that it should work for this!

Now, onto the review proper. The GetMeThinking Math Book by Ammiel Wan & Steward Tang (Visible Math) is the cumulation of years of experience and feedback as can be seen from the updated methodology of Parallel Thinking and Read3Write together with the original \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach\". I have looked through the Pri 5A version and have concluded that it has addressed the main shortcomings of Ammiel Wan's previous books and also, strengthened the approach it takes in reinforcing concepts and knowledge to the students in a non-didactic manner and provides guidance to the student's thought process in an engaging and interesting way. I believe that this will help the students internalize the contextual and conceptual knowledge required in a meaningful manner and help them improve their problem solving skills. Also, I have to add that the procedures and methods in the examples have been greatly updated and are much improved compared to those in \"OnSponge\" or \"Challenging Maths Problems Made Easy\". I have thus finally found a book with worked examples which are able to match my own problem solving methods taught to my students, in both elegance and ease of usage. I would recommend that parents and educators use the \"Visible Thinking in Maths Series by Ammiel Wan\" to improve on their child's basic mathematical concepts (as tested in Math Paper 1) after which they should then follow up on \"GetMeThinking by Ammiel Wan\" to further enhance their child's intermediate and advanced problem solving skills (as usually tested in Math Paper 2).

Kudos to the Visble Math Team for producing an excellent Math Book and I will most definitely be incorporating the 'GetMeThinking Math Book\" into my teaching curriculum at NickleBee Tutors.

Just a point, I am in no way associated with Mr Ammiel Wan, Mr Steward Tang or Visible Maths and this review of their work is written on my own accord and for the benefit of the general populace. However I am rather unabashedly a big fan of the good work Mr Ammiel Wan and Mr Steward Tang have done in advancing mathematical education in Singapore and hope to learn more from them over the years so that I may help my own students improve and develop a love for all things mathematics!

The GetMeThinking books are available from http://www.visiblemath.com.sg/

Zhou Shicai
Lead Educator
NickleBee Tutors

Updated to increase awareness of parents.

Scrapping of T-Scores for PSLE - Some Thoughts


By Zhou Shicai
Lead Math Educator, NickleBee Tutors
August 2013

At the National Day Rally 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the PSLE T-score, long a source of stress for students and parents, will eventually be removed in a few years time and will be replaced with bands similar to those used for O' and A' levels. He said the move was to the remove the fine distinctions in the T-score and ease excessive competition to chase every point and he followed on to add that \"An A* is still an A*, whether you score 91 marks or 99 marks.\"

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/ndr-2013-psle-scores-use-wide-bands-grades-o-levels-20130818

I applaud this move to remove the PSLE T-score which is nothing more than a fine-toothed comb designed to separate and rank each and every child's position relative to his cohort. The T-score is a statistician's dream tool for ensuring that each cohort is assessed, measured and ranked fairly and unbiasedly for secondary school entry and in that respect it has worked wonderfully. However, the T-score has inadvertently led to the obsession of parents and students to chase after the very last mark (or decimals of a mark if you will) which could make all the difference in ensuring that they are ranked a little further ahead of their peers in the cohort and hence that infinitesimally closer to entry into their ideal school.

The Primary School Leaving Examination was started in the 1950's as an exam to ensure that the Primary 6 students have attained a minimum level of knowledge and skills that will allow them to continue on with their secondary studies.That was why My Lee Hsien Loong mentioned during the National Day Rally that he did not know his T-score when he took the PSLE in 1963! He was only told whether he had passed and which school has was posted to. That is because the T-score in itself is quite meaningless in determining the knowledge content the child has mastered and instead is simply a tool for ranking a child relative to his peers in the cohort.

The misconception by parents and students that T-scores are determined by content mastery instead of being merely a ranking tool has led to a flourishing tutoring landscape and has inadvertently fostered an unhealthy atmosphere of competition instead of collaboration amongst students.

With the current shift from the T-score System (which reports only the student's relative position in the cohort) to a Grade-Based System (which is an absolute grading method directly correlated to student's achievement of defined learning objectives), I hope that such a move will lead to students aiming to master each subject to the highest level of excellence and proficiency he can achieve and in turn lead to a healthier education environment where each child is challenged to compete against himself (and hopefully a tad less against others) and thus foster an atmosphere of collaboration instead of competition.

Of course, it would be a tad idealistic for the PSLE to go down the route of a 100% absolute grading system, as how then will the top schools be able to differentiate between a bumper crop of 4A* students? I suspect that the final PSLE scoring system will be Grade based, with the number of each of the Grades assigned to the cohort decided by a pre-determined distribution of grades based on Gaussian distribution (popularly known as a Bell Curve). MOE will perhaps negate some of the negative effects of using aspects of such a Relative Grading System by establishing minimum achievement standards linked to mastery of education objectives and then calculate number of A*s, As, Bs, Cs and Ds based on a curve tied to the student's performance relative to his peers. MOE could also base the \"Bell Curve\", used to determine the proportion of grades awarded to each cohort, on data gathered over multiple years instead of each single year.

These are just my personal opinions on this matter and I thank you for taking the time to read this.

Yours,
Zhou Shicai
Lead Educator
http://www.nicklebeetutors.com

Scrapping of T-Scores for PSLE - Some Thoughts


By Zhou Shicai
Lead Math Educator, NickleBee Tutors
August 2013

At the National Day Rally 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the PSLE T-score, long a source of stress for students and parents, will eventually be removed in a few years time and will be replaced with bands similar to those used for O' and A' levels. He said the move was to the remove the fine distinctions in the T-score and ease excessive competition to chase every point and he followed on to add that \"An A* is still an A*, whether you score 91 marks or 99 marks.\"

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/ndr-2013-psle-scores-use-wide-bands-grades-o-levels-20130818

I applaud this move to remove the PSLE T-score which is nothing more than a fine-toothed comb designed to separate and rank each and every child's position relative to his cohort. The T-score is a statistician's dream tool for ensuring that each cohort is assessed, measured and ranked fairly and unbiasedly for secondary school entry and in that respect it has worked wonderfully. However, the T-score has inadvertently led to the obsession of parents and students to chase after the very last mark (or decimals of a mark if you will) which could make all the difference in ensuring that they are ranked a little further ahead of their peers in the cohort and hence that infinitesimally closer to entry into their ideal school.

The Primary School Leaving Examination was started in the 1950's as an exam to ensure that the Primary 6 students have attained a minimum level of knowledge and skills that will allow them to continue on with their secondary studies.That was why My Lee Hsien Loong mentioned during the National Day Rally that he did not know his T-score when he took the PSLE in 1963! He was only told whether he had passed and which school has was posted to. That is because the T-score in itself is quite meaningless in determining the knowledge content the child has mastered and instead is simply a tool for ranking a child relative to his peers in the cohort.

The misconception by parents and students that T-scores are determined by content mastery instead of being merely a ranking tool has led to a flourishing tutoring landscape and has inadvertently fostered an unhealthy atmosphere of competition instead of collaboration amongst students.

With the current shift from the T-score System (which reports only the student's relative position in the cohort) to a Grade-Based System (which is an absolute grading method directly correlated to student's achievement of defined learning objectives), I hope that such a move will lead to students aiming to master each subject to the highest level of excellence and proficiency he can achieve and in turn lead to a healthier education environment where each child is challenged to compete against himself (and hopefully a tad less against others) and thus foster an atmosphere of collaboration instead of competition.

Of course, it would be a tad idealistic for the PSLE to go down the route of a 100% absolute grading system, as how then will the top schools be able to differentiate between a bumper crop of 4A* students? I suspect that the final PSLE scoring system will be Grade based, with the number of each of the Grades assigned to the cohort decided by a pre-determined distribution of grades based on Gaussian distribution (popularly known as a Bell Curve). MOE will perhaps negate some of the negative effects of using aspects of such a Relative Grading System by establishing minimum achievement standards linked to mastery of education objectives and then calculate number of A*s, As, Bs, Cs and Ds based on a curve tied to the student's performance relative to his peers. MOE could also base the \"Bell Curve\", used to determine the proportion of grades awarded to each cohort, on data gathered over multiple years instead of each single year.

These are just my personal opinions on this matter and I thank you for taking the time to read this.

Yours,
Zhou Shicai
Lead Educator
http://www.nicklebeetutors.com

Review of thinkingmath@OnSponge PSLE Practice Papers (Onsponge, 2013)

Review written by Zhou Shicai (NickleBee Tutors)
June 2013

http://www.onsponge.com/images/stories/virtuemart/product/psle_practice_papers_cover.png\">

Hi, This is Zhou Shicai, lead education consultant of NickleBee Tutors and I would like to take this opportunity to share with parents here of a new book \"thinkingmath@OnSponge PSLE Practice Papers\". The book is published by the same company that brought us the Onsponge \"Conquer Problem Sums\" Math Books back in 2008, which the company had produced in collaboration with Mr Ammiel Wan, who was then the Math Teacher and HOD of Curriculum at Catholic High.

After the resounding success of the Onsponge \"Conquer Problem Sums\" Math Books, I was looking forward to the next update or iteration of the OnSponge Math series.

For the past 5 years, Mr Ammiel Wan (who is now Lead Principal Consultant of Visible Maths) has gone on to further expand his \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach in Learning Mathematics\", incorporated updated methodologies of Parallel Thinking and Read3Write together with the original conceptual approach, and published 2 new books incorporating his new methodologies, namely \"Visible Thinking in Mathematics, released in 2011\" and \"GetMeThinking, released in 2013\".

However, in the same 5 years, things have not progressed as quickly for the Onsponge Math series and apart from minor updates to procedures as taught in the examples and revisions to some questions, nothing much appears to have been done to revolutionize their approach to teaching Math which is still essentially in the same form as what was espoused by Mr Ammiel Wan way back in 2008. It is important to remember that Math Education is never static and the methodologies used in the instruction of concepts and cultivation of critical thinking & problem solving skills in children has to be constantly updated and refined so as to ensure maximum effectiveness in the ever changing education landscape.

So, when i heard that OnSponge had released a new addition to their product line-up, I was hoping that it would be a much awaited update or new edition of their OnSponge Conquer Problem Sums Math Series. Instead, it turned out that Onsponge had published a new companion workbook \"PSLE Practice Papers\" consisting of 10 practice papers (each of which is equivalent to a Paper 2 of the PSLE Math Exam), with each practice paper preceded by a summary of a \"Key Conceptual Knowledge/Strategy as required in Problem Solving\".

I shall start off with a review of the questions as found in the \"PSLE Practice Papers\". The quality of the questions set are indisputable and the mix of questions are enough such that there are sufficient challenging questions for the students to test their grasp of problem solving conceptual knowledge and procedural strategies. However, I find that while some of the questions are indeed quite unique and are interesting takes on what can be tested in the PSLE (and which would provide a challenge for even top students), most of the questions are essentially quite similar to those which can be found in the \"Onsponge Conquer Problem Sums Series\" or Past Year Exam papers from Top Primary Schools.

I have to say that i found the \"Summaries of Key Conceptual Knowledge/Strategy as required in Problem Solving\" before the start of each Practice Paper rather underwhelming as they are essentially rehashed from the examples found in the \"Onsponge Conquer Problem Sum Series\" and are starting to be a little dated as compared to what other competitors are offering in the market. To be honest, I was quite disappointed as I was hoping that there would be an evolution of their teaching methodology (just as Mr Ammiel Wan has done in the Get Me Thinking Math Books) and was looking forward to something new and novel in their approach to teaching students Math Problem Solving Skills.

All in all, questions in the practice papers are well-designed (a hallmark of the OnSponge Brand) and will provide a good practice for the average to good student. However, most of the questions are similar to those found in Top Schools Past Year Papers and so, parents can choose to give their child either \"Onsponge PSLE Practice Papers\" or assorted \"Past Year Exam Papers from Top Primary Schools\" as practice before the PSLE. It would be rather pointless and unproductive to do both as the child will be quite bored with doing similar questions repeatedly and a point of diminishing returns will be reached.

For those who have gone through and done the \"Onsponge Conquer Problem Sum Series\" and Mr Ammiel Wan's \"Get Me Thinking Math Book Series\" with their teachers, tutors or parents, i would recommend that they stick to practicing Past Year Exam Questions from Top Schools for a more varied mix in questions practiced.

For those who are in Pri 6 and have not had the opportunity to practice the \"Onsponge Books\" or the \"Get Me Thinking Books\" and who are gearing up for the last lap before the PSLE, I would recommend that they buy and use the \"Onsponge PSLE Practice Papers\" as a primer of the various conceptual knowledge and procedural strategies as required in Math Problem Solving and following which they can practice and internalize their newly learnt problem solving skills using the practice papers in the books.

The Onsponge PSLE Practice Papers can be bought from the ThinkingMath Webstore at http://www.onsponge.com/shop/thinkingmathshop.html

Yours
Zhou Shicai
NickleBee Tutors
91884710
http://www.nicklebeetutors.com

pokemon:

Any parents have used or seen \"get me thinking\" math book by Ammiel Wan? I would like to know if this book covers only problem sum like Onsponge book? For parents whom have used both books, any feedback which book is useful for math high achiever? Thanks

Review of the \"thinkingMath @ Onsponge\" Series (Ammiel Wan, Chris Rogers & Corine Quek; 2008)
By Zhou Shicai (NickleBee Tutors) first written Jan 2011


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T1Ag7jyoqi0/UJxjP3cUphI/AAAAAAAAARI/A4yCiSl40xc/s1600/onsponge+books.jpg\">

Mr Ammiel Wan first developed the cognitive conceptual approach and published it in a book \"Challenging Math Problems Made Easy\" way back in 2006. If I am not wrong, he was the HOD of curriculum in Catholic High back then.

Anyway, from what i understand, Onsponge then partnered with Mr Ammiel Wan in 2008 to use and develop his mathematics teaching concepts into the Onsponge series of assessment books as sold today.

The Onsponge books are an awesome resource (if a bit dated) for students wanting to learn the various conceptual knowledge required to ace Problem Sums in the Math Paper 2. Personally, while I admire the way Mr Ammiel Wan has revolutionized the approach to teaching students mathematics as it gels in very well with my own teaching methodology, I personally feel that the some of the procedural knowledge (methods) as taught in the Onsponge Books are quite cumbersome and rather lacking in fineness as they seem geared towards higher ability students who already have a working knowledge of problem solving and are just looking for a boost to fine tune the nuances of their problem solving capability. For other students who are still in the process of improving their problem solving skills, the way the books are structured has an unfortunate and unintended side-effect (if not taught correctly) of encouraging rote learning and blind application of methods (based on how the child thinks the question should be categorized) without understanding that problem solving is a process where the means is very much as important as the ends.

While I do use the Onsponge books for my students because the questions are excellent (on par with top schools math exam questions), I do not use the methods as taught in the examples as I feel that once the child has read to understand the questions and can apply the same conceptual knowledge to questions with different contexts, the child should then be allowed to apply his innate reasoning and analytical skills to present whichever methods he so chooses in a clear and concise manner under my personal guidance. Of course I fine tune and tweak each child's methods to make them clearer and more presentable and after which, I would then show a couple of alternative methods to my students to expose them to different though processes to deriving the answer and in so doing strengthen their grasp of the concepts. I also have a habit of making my students present their though processes (all the way from reading the question to getting the final answer) to the rest of the class as I find that it helps the student's metacognition (thinking about their own thought process) and allow me to spot any inadequacies in the child's mathematical thought process or errors in their conceptual knowledge which can be improved further.

Anyway, Mr Ammiel Wan left the teaching service sometime last year (his last appointment was vice-principle of Rosyth Primary) and has started \"Visible Math\" (http://www.visiblemath.com.sg) with Mr Steward Teng (former HOD) and other HODs and Teachers. He has also recognized that the Onsponge books are heavily geared towards Paper 2 Maths and has published a series of workbooks in 2011 called \"Visible Thinking in Mathematics\" available in Popular which are aimed at helping weaker students improve their basic mathematical concepts through the use of the Cognitive Conceptual Approach and while the answer sheets contain quite a number of glaringly obvious errors at least in the Pri 5 books that I use for my students (it is the 1st edition after all), I feel that the books are a must have for any student wanting to use them as a spring board to improving their basic math concepts before proceeding onto acing their problem solving questions.

Yours
Zhou Shicai
NickleBee Tutors
91884710
http://www.nicklebeetutors.com

Update : Mr Ammiel Wan has recently released the GetMeThinking Math Books which are currently on sale at his Education Centre \"Visible Maths\"

pokemon:

Any parents have used or seen \"get me thinking\" math book by Ammiel Wan? I would like to know if this book covers only problem sum like Onsponge book? For parents whom have used both books, any feedback which book is useful for math high achiever? Thanks

Review of the GetMeThinking Math Books (Ammiel Wan & Steward Tang; Visible Math, 2013)
by Zhou Shicai (NickleBee Tutors)
January 2013

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ai2uCiohNlA/UPOfOn4s4iI/AAAAAAAAAYI/-LpbXHsYNKw/s320/getmethinking+book.JPG\">

Hi, This is Zhou Shicai, lead education consultant of NickleBee Tutors and I would like to take this opportunity to share with parents here of a new book published by Mr Ammiel Wan (former Vice-Principle of Rosyth Primary, Author of the popular OnSponge, Challenging Problems Made Easy & Visible Thinking in Math assessment books and who is currently the Principal Consultant at Visble Math).

I have been teaching PSLE & Olympiad Math to GEP and High Ability students for a number of years now. Given my education background and multiple awards in Olympiad level Math Competitions during my Raffles Institution (GEP) days, it is probably no surprise that when I first started out as a Math Educator while still studying as a dental undergraduate in NUS Faculty of Dentistry, i was not impressed with the standards of Math education and teaching methodology amongst teachers and tutors when it came to imparting math problem solving skillsets and concepts across to primary school students.

Hence when Mr Ammiel Wan first published \"Challenging Problem Made Easy\" back in 2006, i found that he brought a fresh approach to guiding students through math problem solving by introducing the idea that Math Problem Solving could be approached from a \"Conceptual\" perspective. He followed up in 2008 by being a consultant in the development of the \"Onsponge\" Math Books which further expanded his conceptual approach and included the tripartite of \"Contextual, Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge\".

After first perusing his Onsponge books back in 2008, I became a firm believer in Mr Ammiel Wan's \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach in Learning Mathematics\" as I shared his belief that most teachers focus so much on \"Procedural\" knowledge that they have lost sight of the original purpose of Problem Solving in Mathematics, which was to promote critical thinking and application of heuristics and problem solving skills. I was rather excited that Mr Ammiel Wan's approach in Mathematical education dovetailed in very well with my own teaching methodology and I began incorporating and adapting elements of his approach into my teaching curriculum.

Of course, there are certain points I have to make before carrying on. I have found it quite strange that school teachers and tutors are still encouraging students to buy Ammiel Wan's \"Challenging Math Problems Made Easy\". Though it was ground-breaking when first published in 2006, it can be considered his first-generational work and much of its content has been superseded by his succeeding works over the past 7 years or so.

Also, though I find the OnSponge Math Books (also involving Mr Ammiel Wan as a consultant) to be one of the better math assessment books in the market with an excellent question bank and some reasonably good worked examples. I found that it's chief failing was that it unwittingly encouraged students (who are not properly guided in the cognitive conceptual approach by their teachers) to memorise a certain concept to use for associated questions and instead of encouraging the students to apply concepts after understanding the context of the question. It instead led to students skimming through the question and deciding, without much understanding and thinking involved, to apply a certain concept just because they have done a similar question previously and if the concept worked for that, it follows that it should work for this!

Now, onto the review proper. The GetMeThinking Math Book by Ammiel Wan & Steward Tang (Visible Math) is the cumulation of years of experience and feedback as can be seen from the updated methodology of Parallel Thinking and Read3Write together with the original \"Cognitive Conceptual Approach\". I have looked through the Pri 5A version and have concluded that it has addressed the main shortcomings of Ammiel Wan's previous books and also, strengthened the approach it takes in reinforcing concepts and knowledge to the students in a non-didactic manner and provides guidance to the student's thought process in an engaging and interesting way. I believe that this will help the students internalize the contextual and conceptual knowledge required in a meaningful manner and help them improve their problem solving skills. Also, I have to add that the procedures and methods in the examples have been greatly updated and are much improved compared to those in \"OnSponge\" or \"Challenging Maths Problems Made Easy\". I have thus finally found a book with worked examples which are able to match my own problem solving methods taught to my students, in both elegance and ease of usage. I would recommend that parents and educators use the \"Visible Thinking in Maths Series by Ammiel Wan\" to improve on their child's basic mathematical concepts (as tested in Math Paper 1) after which they should then follow up on \"GetMeThinking by Ammiel Wan\" to further enhance their child's intermediate and advanced problem solving skills (as usually tested in Math Paper 2).

Kudos to the Visble Math Team for producing an excellent Math Book and I will most definitely be incorporating the 'GetMeThinking Math Book\" into my teaching curriculum at NickleBee Tutors.

Just a point, I am in no way associated with Mr Ammiel Wan, Mr Steward Tang or Visible Maths and this review of their work is written on my own accord and for the benefit of the general populace. However I am rather unabashedly a big fan of the good work Mr Ammiel Wan and Mr Steward Tang have done in advancing mathematical education in Singapore and hope to learn more from them over the years so that I may help my own students improve and develop a love for all things mathematics!

Yours,
Zhou Shicai
Lead Education Consultant
NickleBee Tutors
http://www.nicklebeetutors.com

Self-proclaimed \"gifted\" tutor not even NUS grad

Edvantage | Sun Aug 5 2012

http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/features/people/1242026/Self_proclaimed_gifted_tutor_not_even_NUS_grad.html

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Mr Kelvin Ong never graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a double mathematics major.

In fact, he never attended the university, The Sunday Times reported.

Last month the Education Ministry revealed that Mr Ong was neither a pupil nor teacher in the Gifted Education Programme.

He then claimed that it was his mother who told him that he was from the gifted programme and he could not verify it because he does not have the records from the past.

He went on to add that he was a relief teacher at Anglo-Chinese School's (Primary) from 2002 to 2003 and \"helped out\" with the gifted classes.

This claim was then disputed by the school. ACS primary added that a check with all its long-serving teachers revealed that there was never a Kelvin Ong who taught there as a relief teacher.

The Sunday Times revealed that Mr Ong had actually graduated from Nanyang Polytechnic with a diploma in 2000.

He then worked as a physiotherapist at National University Hospital (NUH) before being asked to leave in 2004 over \"integrity\" issues. It was during this time when he was working at NUH that he had claimed he had been a relief teacher in ACS primary.

'Gifted' private tutor told by MOE to stop lying

AsiaOne | Mon Jul 30 2012

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SINGAPORE - Mr Kelvin Ong Wee Loong, the founder of AristoCare centre, charges a whopping $250 per lesson for parents of primary school students looking to clinch a place in the coveted Gifted Education Programme (GEP).

GEP is a highly selective academic programme in Singapore, designed to identify the top 1 per cent of students from each academic year.

On his website, the 36-year-old claimed he was previously from Clementi Town Primary before being admitted to Anglo-Chinese School's (Primary) GEP in Primary 4.

He further stated that he went on to attend Anglo-Chinese Junior College and the National University of Singapore, before becoming a teacher in the GEP programme at his alma mater.

However, checks by the Ministry of Education (MOE) revealed that Mr Ong was neither ever a pupil nor teacher in the programme, The Sunday Times reported (SUT)

He is not even a qualified teacher, and according to ACS (Primary), not even a student of the school.

MOE was alerted to the claims when SUT ran a report on parents sending children for costly tuition, where Mr Ong was featured as a highly sought after tutor.

In response to the revelations, Mr Ong said it was his mother who told him that he was from the gifted programme and he could not verify it because he does not have the records from the past.

He has since cleaned up his website and now claims that he was a relief teacher at ACS (Primary) from 2002 to 2003 and 'helped out' with the gifted classes.

However, this too is being disputed by the ACS (Primary), which said that a check with all its long-serving teachers revealed that there was never a Kelvin Ong who taught there as a relief teacher.

This is not the first time Mr Ong has faced allegations of misleading claims.

Two parents have asked him to remove positive testimonials supposedly written by their children, saying that their children never wrote them.

In 2010, Mr Ong also got into hot water with MOE for selling fake 2009 GEP Screening and Selection Test papers.

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