Education Technology


Year 7: Mental Arithmetic

by Texas Instruments

Objectives

There are three main objectives in this activity, they are to improve students': 

  • Programming skills (STEM)
  • Mental arithmetic skills
  • Ability to design and execute a mathematical investigation

Vocabulary

Mathematics Coding
  • Order of operations
  • Approximate
  • Estimate
  • Random Sample
  • Request
  • Wait
  • RandSamp
  • Dispat

About the Lesson

Watch a Lily Serna in action

This activity goes beyond basic programming. Once the students have finished writing a program to simulate the Numbers game, they consider questions such as: "How many points is an extra number worth?" or "How many points is extra time worth or other mathematical operations such as factorial, square-root or square?" Students conduct an investigation into such points, in the meantime, they are constantly building their mental arithmetic skills!