Organisation of independent work at Mathematics lessons in primary school

Abstract

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the organisation of independent work with primary school students. After all, independent work in learning is the most important prerequisite for truly conscious and strong mastery of knowledge. The cognitive independence of a student in primary school is not only the purpose of education, but also a necessary means of mastering the educational material through independent work. A large portion of independent work in mathematics contributes to the development of children’s attention, the development of their ability to reason, the education of independence as a character trait. Meanwhile, the limited direct face-to-face communication between teachers and primary school students leads to the fact that their independent work loses a clear direction, and therefore is not effective enough. To save time, a teacher usually does not consider it necessary to instruct students in detail about the progress and sequence of the task. This largely explains the reproducibility of many tasks that applicants receive for independent work (to write, read, calculate, study, and repeat). Such independent tasks limit the child's independence by imitative actions that inhibit the development of their thinking. A significant disadvantage while organizing independent work in the classroom is the incorrect limit of time set to complete tasks. This finding is based either on the excessive duration of independent work in mathematics lessons, or on the discrepancy between the allotted time and the degree of complexity of the proposed task. Fuzzy statement of tasks reduces the effectiveness of independent work and is incorrect. The teacher often asks students for 10–15 minutes: “Get focused with your thoughts”, “Think about the condition of the problem”, “Prepare for oral counting” and so on. The vagueness of tasks cannot direct children’s efforts to achieve a certain result, because it distracts their attention. Such independent tasks are mostly not subject to effective teacher control, and this leads to students being inactive in mathematics lessons. Keywords: applicants, independent work, organization, degrees of complexity, efficiency, independent tasks, directions, expediency, independence.