Tuesday, January 5, 2010
MathEd117
Mathematics is the study and interpretation of numbers and how they relate to eachother. Math is very wide encompassing because the study of numbers is so broad. The study of math is often broken down into simpler studies, such as: trigonometry, algebra, and calculus. Everybody learns math in different ways. The best way for me to learn mathematics is to have someone explain the concept to me, then have me try on my own to do problems, asking for help if I need it, then eventually teaching someone else the concept I just learned and applied. My students will learn mathematics best by being able to get individual help after having it explained to the class. I would introduce and explain the new concept to the class, work on some example problems with the class as a whole, then have each student continue to work on problems individually, then allow the students to work in groups as I walked around the room helping those that needed help. I think technology and visuals provided by schools help the students' learning. Often it is visuals that allow people to learn best. A problem within school mathematics, however, is the large size of class rooms. By this I mean the large number of students in each class room. This large size makes it difficult for one teacher to be able to help all the students, making it easy for some students to fall behind. It helps when a teacher has some sort of assistant, but I think individual help is very important. Not all students are confused by the same things. That is why it is so important to talk individually with students and figure out what is confusing to them.
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I love that you mention the difficulties teachers face with teaching such large class sizes. It makes it quite difficult to help each student and make sure that everyone understands on the same level. Last year I was an assistant in a 3rd grade math class and couldn't believe that one teacher was expected to keep track of some 30 or so students. I came to realize that a lot of them weren't completely understanding or were bored from lack of being challenged in their learning.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's a great idea to incorporate technology and visual aids into the classroom to help students learn but sometimes I feel like teachers end up entertaining students rather than teaching them. It would be nice to see teachers expanding visual learning aids to make sure students get something out of the lesson.
Your way of learning math sounds a lot like the way I typically learned math when I was in school. You say that everybody learns math differently. What other ways do you see people learning math? The reason I ask is that if you can be more specific about the ways they learn math, you will be able to make better pedagogical decisions when you teach.
ReplyDeleteI personally also like visuals when I am learning math. Have you thought much about how you would use visuals in your own teaching, or how your teachers have used visuals? There might be many different ways to incorporate visuals into a lesson, and some ways might be more useful to students than others.