Problem Solving in Mathematics (MAE572) has taught me the value of critical thinking and

the cooperation between members in group. The course is designed to introduce the elementary
and secondary teachers on mathematical problem solving in school. In school, students will
explore the variety issues on solving the problems such as counting, problems involving
puzzles, algebra problems, probability and many more. As a future educator, it is importance
for us to learn this course as we are responsible to guide them solving the problem in school.

Through my journey on learning this course, I still remember how difficult it was for our class,
ED2604A to enter this MAE572 class. This is because we had our Chemistry Lab in Shah Alam
from 11 a.m to 1.50 p.m. At that time, our MAE class was at 2 p.m. It took one hour to arrived
from Shah Alam to Puncak Alam. Because of this, we always late for one hour on this class.
To avoid this from happen, our class had been replaced on Wednesday at 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

This course consists of tests, reflective journal, activity and presentations. The first activity we
played was ‘London Bridge’. It was really fun and exciting game. My group members and I
had successfully build a ‘bridge’ that were high, strong and could accommodate the books on
top of it. Other activity was ‘Guess the Number’. I have to admit that this game was stressful
and I believed that my classmates also feel they same way like I do. However, we manage to
complete the task and guess the number correctly.

In every activities that we had, we have to end it with presentations. In this presentation, we
have to reflect on what we had learned from the activities. This presentation have to come out
with strategy, procedures, objective and reflection. We also were asked to solve the problem
from the exercise in MAE book. To be honest, I have difficulties to complete the exercise and
it even took times for me to understand the question. I was really impressed on how other group
members solve the problem.
It was the same situation when we had to solve the Sudoku games. For those who know and
used to play this game will be easy for them to complete this task. The last game we played
was ‘Guess the Movie’. We have to make some impressions that are suits on the movie. The
last person of the group have to guess the movie. My group have been successfully guess the
movie correctly.

As a conclusion, I could say that this course is pretty hard for me. Each and every activities I
found it was difficult for me to complete it. Sometimes I feel so lost and start to questioning
myself, am I will going to pass this course? How did my classmates manage to complete the
task successfully? How they do that? I guess, I am not a critical thinking person. Even the test
was 40% which the questions required us to think out of the box. However, I try to be positive
that I will pass this course successfully.