Rote learning works if …

Rote learning is defined as the memorization of information based on repetition. It is not considered higher-level thought or critical thinking, the creativity in students is stunted and suppressed, and students do not learn how to think. So Rote Learning has gotten a bad rap in education circles.

Rote learning can work if these 3 ingredients are present.

1. Preface it with a good soul-satisfying explanation why the concept works. Example, see this post about a soul-satisfying way to explain Rounding Numbers [Link].
2. Many sessions of consistent practice until the steps are fluent aka Drills.
3. Frequent Review a few days, weeks, months to reinforce the algorithm.

Unfortunately, these are very hard to implement. Here are the challenges.

In a large classroom, it’s not easy to present the concept to every child’s level.

Kids hate drills. Very few kids see the long-term benefit of drill-and-kill. So parents end up having to bribe them with carrots, or threaten them with sticks. That only works for a while as the carrots and the sticks can only get bigger and bigger to a limit.

Math moves so quickly in the classroom, there’s little chance to review previous drills. Kids have different strengths of retaining concepts, and multi-step algorithms, well, entail remembering multiple steps in the right order without mixing up any nuances to the algorithm.