"What was your greatest 'learning' this semester with regard to teaching children mathematics? How has your thinking shifted?"
This semester has been a unique learning experience for me. In most of our courses, we took a hard look at how many different ways there are to delve into curriculum material. We learned that not everything needs to be done in a cut and dry manner, but that we can bring subject matter to a whole new light if only we could look at it with different lenses. This theme continued in our Education 3940 course, when we learned that math has little to do with right and wrong answers...looking at it another way, we don't need to focus on one right answer to a math problem. We can encourage students reaching the end of a math problem in whatever way that they choose. This is comforting for me because as a student, I did not necessarily understand the quick and "simple" ways of reaching an answer: I usually had to do multiple steps so I could physically see the math working out. It's nice to know that not only is this okay, now, it is encouraged - there is no one way to do a problem or to find a "right" answer.
Coming into this class, I had a lot of anxiety about teaching math. I can't necessarily say that that has fully disappeared, because I'm still not overly confident in my own math abilities. But, I do have confidence that I have the tools to ensure that these feelings do not arise in any of my students. I think this may be my greatest learning this semester - what not to do in math class to create math anxiety and feelings of not being good enough in the children in my class.
My thinking has shifted in terms of this because I no longer believe that the way my teachers taught math was the best or only way: by drilling our times tables, by doing competitions of who can do the most math problems the fastest, or by giving test after test after test. I honestly believe that I will employ the Math Fair idea in my classroom. I intend to teach the elementary grades and so I believe this is very doable and VERY beneficial. It was the best thing we did all semester in my opinion. Math problems can look like nothing but a mess of letters and numbers when written on paper. In a bigger-scale, hands-on, visually appealing fashion, they are a lot less overwhelming and can often be generally easier for students to grasp the concepts and fully understand the workings of the problem they are attempting to solve.
In some ways, I did not get everything I hoped to get out of this course. As I said, I still have some anxiety about teaching math because I do not feel that I learned many useful methods for teaching. However, I now have a better understanding of what math really is. I have a better idea about what I can do to foster a positive learning experience when it comes to math. I know that math is not about right answers, nor is it about wrong answers. I am more familiar with the materials that are available to me as a teacher for teaching math, and my eyes have been opened to a wealth of resources that I can get my hands on to help me with my teaching. I learned a lot from my classmates, too, in our peer-teaching: good and not-so-good ways of doing things, creative ideas and teaching methods for ensuring understanding.
Overall, I think there are a number of things I will take with me from this course. Starting my internship in the fall, I don't think I will be quite as nervous about teaching math as I would have been prior to doing this course.
