Final Week

Over the last 6 weeks, I have come not only to appreciate but fully agree with the new philosophy of teaching math to make it rich and meaningful for our students.

I thought it did make sense to teach math using this approach but I was still on the fence about adopting this mentality as I was comfortable with the traditional method of teaching math and it worked for me as a student.

However, as the world has changed and continues to change at breakneck speed, I now believe that it is imperative that our teaching methodology evolves accordingly. Today’s teaching cannot be not a one-size fits all approach that stresses memorization. Students should not be passive recipients of information that is delivered through an authority model.

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I learned that differentiation is something that we must incorporate in our teaching. While the lecture style approach may work for some students, there are other students with different learning styles and preferences that need to be included. Some may be visual learners and may learn best with drawings or demonstrations. Some may be kinesthetic learners and may learn well with manipulatives.

Differentiation is something that I find difficult to practice and I think the concept of math stations as a method of differentiation is brilliant! I have never seen math stations, but I think it is a very interesting and inviting way of addressing different student needs and styles! If I were a student today, I would definitely welcome the ability to choose a station.  

Content differentiation should also be used as it offers more than one way for students to understand content being presented during practice or assessment. Product differentiation should also be considered to offer students alternative ways of demonstrating their knowledge during assessments.

Ok. Now that we have covered the teacher’s side, I want to share what my thoughts about today’s math students.

We learned about the stereotypes and myths of being a “math person.” I really enjoyed these topics!  Scientific research has shown the incredible potential of the brain to grow and adapt especially when making mistakes, yet society and our media propagate the idea that math is hard, boring and only attainable for select people such as “nerds.” 

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Learning math through drills and outdated textbooks can be boring! I don’t blame the students at all – I would rather do something else too! We need to make math interesting and relatable for our students! 

Dan Meyer’s Water Tank problem was a great example of a typical word problem that transformed into a rich, engaging problem that students could approach from various angles as they share ideas, guess and redefine the problem. The problem also became more real and more authentic as it provided a video of a water tank being filled.

I also learned that when it comes to math, there is a very common misconception regarding speed. I find this very powerful because many people believe that the ability to solve a problem quickly implies that you understand the problem and are “smart.” However, many brilliant mathematicians have spent weeks studying a problem slowly and patiently, deconstructing the problem to fully understand the problem before arriving to a solution. We need to coach our students to be able to persevere and “wrestle” with the problem to fully understand the problem.  We need to recognize their effort and motivate them to continue even if they make a mistake (perhaps we need to reward mistakes) they need to keep trying. 

Source: http://bit.ly/2P1cMkd

Also, our discussion about grade-less marking was very thought-provoking. Grades are such a source of anxiety for most of our students. This can be detrimental to their self-esteem and curbs their ability to learn and improve. We need to provide more opportunities to provide students with solid and effective feedback (without a grade) that is specific – we need to let them know what they are doing well, what they need to improve and how they should go about it.

Let’s help eliminate the fear of math in our students and get them to see that we are all math people!

Thanks for joining me over the last 6 weeks!