Visible Maths by Peter Mattock

Author:Peter Mattock [Peter Mattock]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781785834080
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Published: 2019-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Order of operations

Many teachers treat the order of operations as what Dr Dave Hewitt calls ‘arbitrary knowledge’ – that, by convention, multiplication has to be done before addition, but had we defined it differently it could equally work the other way around.* However, exploring these operations using our understanding of the laws of arithmetic, along with suitable representations, can make it clear that this is not arbitrary knowledge but necessary knowledge – that is, it must work in this way or inconsistencies appear elsewhere. As order of operations is not taught until Year 6, at least according to the English national curriculum, this would mean that well-taught pupils will have developed the required understanding of the laws of arithmetic to approach the order of operations in this way.

Another common approach in schools is to immediately approach operations from the point of view of order. However, I have found it much more beneficial to start by exploring and explaining why the order doesn’t affect the outcome with certain operations.

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