IPMUM Education
MathematicsMath Anxiety
“Math Anxiety” is commonly defined as a feeling of tension, apprehension or even fear that interferes with one’s Math performance. Math Anxiety can cause one to forget and lose one’s self-confidence (Tobias, S., 1993).
In layman terms, it is the feeling of fear or worry about one’s ability to understand Math, do Math or take Math tests and may have the following symptoms:
- “Mental Blocks” – Stare blankly at questions without being able to understand.
- Leaving Answers Blank – Simply because they do not recognise the concept of the question. This causes them to write one or two equations at best and then skipping the question altogether.
- Gets Discouraged – Especially when they don’t score well or worse, fail. This is despite studying very hard and memorising standard solutions through loads of practice.
- Grows Frustrated – Caused by consistently making the same careless mistakes in the same kind of questions and losing marks unnecessarily.
- Passive Behaviour – They start to avoid their homework, give excuses to not do or even lie about finishing just so that they don’t have to deal with the anxiety, pressure and stress.
- Gives Up – They start thinking that they’re “stupid” and that they are never going to be good in Math. This solidifies the “I can’t do it” belief and translates into low self-confidence, possibly affecting other subjects as well.
Teaching Methodology
Math Anxiety is a very real problem among Upper Primary school children for the simple reason that Math concepts and problems become more challenging in nature. This is usually made even worse by the thought of having to solve long and complicated Word Problems.
Our unique M.U.M.S Teaching Methodology was created based on our R.O.O.T.S Beliefs to help our learners overcome the fear for Math Word Problems by tackling the problem and nurturing them at the “root” level.
Combining the M.U.M.S Teaching Methodology with our MOE-based curriculum, we firmly believe that we can give our learners a simple and easy-to-master strategy to attempt, solve and master Math in order to boost their success rate and potential in Math performance.
The “M.U.M.S” Teaching Methodology
Motivate – Create the inner desire to believe in his ability
Understand – Understand the questions first and foremost
Mistakes – Learn from mistakes. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn and improve
Succeed – Conquer the questions and celebrate success
O’ Level & PSLE Math Tuition
Curriculum
Our Math tuition programme follows the Ministry of Education (MOE)’s school curriculum. Question worksheets are of high quality and developed in-house with different level of difficulty.
- Basic Math Skills
We do not leave out the teaching of basic mathematical skills. Even for advance students, we find it very important to reinforce these skills so that “careless mistakes” are not an excuse. - Word Problems and Heuristics
Difficult and more challenging concepts are taught in detail with alternative methods to ensure the concepts are well understood and could be applied well when tested.
Available for students:
- PSLE Math Tuition – From Primary 1 to 6
- Secondary 1 to 4
Effective
Problem-Solving
Steps
We build students’ confidence in understanding of the mathematical concepts and solving the Word Problems using our FIST Problem-Solving Steps.
We further reinforce the students’ understanding with questions of different difficulty levels during the Math tuition.
What am I asked to FIND?
What INFORMATION do I have?
What STRATEGIES should I use to solve?
THINK again – does the answer make sense?
Teacher Felicia
Principal / Mathematics Teacher
Teacher Felicia has a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) from NTU (Nanyang Technological University).
Having come from a family of teachers. Teacher Felicia developed the passion to teach since young. She hopes to make a difference to a child’s life and believes that every child will succeed with the right guidance and motivation.
Teacher Eliza
Mathematics Teacher
Teacher Eliza has a Diploma from NIE (National Institute of Education) and was previously teaching in an MOE school.
Teacher Eliza encourages learning through play. She is very creative in her lessons and always finds ways to engage her students.
Testimonials
Sen Yap, parent of Rohan Soyza (P3 2020)
My son and his best friend started taking online Math lessons from IPMUM during the Circuit Breaker period and are happily continuing the lessons till today. He is now consistently in the top few percent of his class for Math, and I believe this is due to the systematic and rigorous approach of Teacher Eliza and the IPMUM curriculum.
Very importantly, Teacher Eliza has been able to build a good bond/rapport with my son, so he looks forward to the classes. Previously, we could never get him to commit to any enrichment classes. I think the online class format and IPMUM work well and highly recommend it to other
parents looking for effective Math tuition.
Mum of Hou Tsing (A* in PSLE Math 2017)
Ms. Chan exposes the students to more than one approach for each question. This enabled students to choose the method they are more confident in to solve different problem sums. Thanks to Ms. Chan and her effective PSLE Math tuition, my son was able to score an A* for Math in PSLE.
Wing Ting (P6 2019)
Thank you Ms.Chan for your guidance. I love your lesson and look forward to it every Saturday. I have learnt a lot of tricks to solve problems using your methods. Your lessons are fun and interesting. I am able to attain good Math score in my PSLE due to your guidance. Thank You.
Adam (A* in PSLE Math 2017)
Joining IPMUM’s PSLE Math tuition in Primary 6 allowed me to improve my grades from B to A-star throughTeacher Felicia’s patient teaching of well-thought methods.