TEDxOrangeCoast - Matthew Peterson - Teaching Without Words

In school, the dominant way of conveying ideas is through words. Words can be great barriers to learning. Matthew Petersen shows and explains how we can learn without words.

Matthew Peterson, Ph.D., is Co-Founder, Senior Institute Scientist, and Chief Technical Officer of the MIND Research Institute. He is the creator of MIND's Math instructional software that teaches math to students using a unique non-language-based approach. Matthew was recently featured on Discovery Channel's "Profile Series." His focus is on developing math learning environments that initially convey sophisticated concepts visually, enabling students to gain a solid conceptual understanding of mathematics regardless of language proficiency. Matthew's cutting-edge teaching methods are currently benefiting over 300,000 students. He is the author of "MIND's Algebra Readiness" textbook, adopted in California in 2008, in addition to other technical and scientific publications.

About TEDx.
TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.

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  Education

[ButterflyLullabyLtd]

My little girl has made up a Maths Times Tables game for the Wii. Would be great if someone could help us create it!

[ButterflyLullabyLtd]

Wow! This is brilliant! My daughter has dyslexia and sadly there is no funding in UK schools, so children suffer. How do I get in contact with Matthew Petersen? I would like to share my daughters Maths rap, which was a song she made up when she was in school. It proves how bad the Education System made her feel and how it caused serious anxiety issues. Visual is far better for children than words, because children love pictures. She is now homeschooled and her anxiety has gone.

[Barbara Smith]

:-)



[Nikhil Shrivastava]

It should be increase in rate of growth in math proficiency..!! But one can reduce it by saying "growth in math proficiency".

[Nikhil Shrivastava]

amazing dude, love it !!

[glebs]

What does "growth in math proficiency" mean?

[warriorfire8103]

Personally having something like this for Computer tech training would be amazing for me. I'm doing ok but the vast majority of my proficency comes from hands on and visual practice. When I read I have to usually do something alongside it or I don't really understand or even remember what the hell I just read.

[Mark Stanzel]

Well, I would be considered a failure according to what you caged me into with your words - not that you meant to. But my point is that you don't need to be so worried. I pushed all my life but never had the confidence until after the Army. I was 28 when I married, had horrible grades, got outside of my normal comfort zone by deploying to Germany during the Cold War, scared out of my mind with discos blowing up. I needed a way to prove to myself I was good enough. I graduated with honors.

[Encompass Polar]

I worry about my son as it was a very hard road for me - continuous failure knocks the hell out of your confidence - unless a person is tenacious and has a core fundamental belief in themselves - they will never succeed - life is hard enough without going through a system that is geared up to fail a sector of our population that has produced some of our greatest minds - you want to be a good or even a great teacher - you need to find a way to enable your students to succeed - that is your job.