Encore Encore! A Final Reflection of 8P29

           Summer 2016: The first assignment I received this semester occurred before the semester even began. I remember getting an email in late July or early August that said I was required to complete an online math refresher course before the first day of classes and being utterly terrified. First, I was scared of the workload; the program had not even started and we were already expected to have completed assignments. Second, at the time even mentioning the word math made me shiver. As many of my classmates also divulged on the first day of class, math was not my best subject. However, I quickly shoved those negative feelings under the rug, signed up for ‘Elevate My Math’, read the first few questions and… just as quickly pulled those negative feelings back out. ‘This is supposed to reflect Junior/Intermediate math!? What does this even mean!?” I couldn’t remember a single thing about math. Over the course of a week or so I managed to struggle (with lots of frustration) through the math course, printed off my certificate and vowed never to open it again. I would NEVER be a math teacher anyway…

          December 2016: This week we had our last math class (which also happened to be my very last class of first semester). We were asked to create a song, skit, rap, rhyme or any other creative expression of math that we could think of. As each group performed their silly creation I looked around the room at my fellow ‘non-math students’ and noticed how different we looked as a class. On day one we walked in scared and shy; we expressed our fear for the course and our awful math backgrounds. On our last day I could visibly see the differences this course had made for us. I was now surrounded by smiles and laughter, silly jokes about math but also an obvious understanding of what had been taught. Over the course of twelve weeks we had moved past our fears and learned how easy it is to enjoy math and even more importantly how to make math enjoyable for our students as math teachers.

          Throughout this course we’ve moved past our fears by learning that math really is for everyone as long as teachers let it be. We need to teach our students not one but many strategies for solving any and every problem. We need to encourage students to do what makes sense to them rather than sticking to a strict formula. We need to instill a growth mindset in our students by exemplifying those characteristics in all of our lessons. We should never let a student to feel like math is not for them or get discouraged because something is not right. Math is not about right or wrong as we always thought, it is about mistakes, discovery and growth. Both students and teachers need to use their mistakes to discover new things in order to constantly grow as learners and educators.

          This course has taught us the importance of variety. This is appropriate for all subjects; lessons, activities and tasks should be fresh and new. There should be a number of mediums used to demonstrate ideas not just to keep lessons engaging but to ensure every style of learner is able to be successful. On day one we were told that ‘no’ does not belong in a math class. Math is about saying ‘yes’ to our students and encouraging them to explore their thought process and ideas. The more we can help them explore, the more we will foster their growth mindset and ensure they never say ‘I hate math’ like so many of us thought we did before starting this course.

          We’ve also learned the importance of collaboration when teaching math or really when teaching at all. We should collaborate with our fellow teachers when creating lessons and units in order to make sure we are providing students with the most opportunities to succeed. We should ‘collaborate’ with online resources in order to introduce students to as many learning opportunities as possible. We should also learn to combine all of our new teaching techniques with the old ones in order to collaborate with parents. There needs to be a balance between the old and the new so parents are able and willing to help their child’s growth. We should teach in this new and inclusive way but include some of the old ideas and strategies so it is easier for parents to understand and therefore be involved with their students learning.

         This semester I have learned so much about teaching math but most importantly I have learned that there is still so much to learn. Just as we expect our students to always be willing to grow, we too must realize that we can always learn new and exciting ways to make math fun, accessible and enjoyable for ALL of our students.

Can You Guess What We Learned This Week?

          As a (pre-service) teacher we are constantly warned about taking precautions during our lesson plans. This means always remaining politically correct or unbiased, ensuring inclusivity and avoiding (some) pedagogy’s or tasks that me be an issue to parents/guardians. When I thought about these precautions I often associated them with subjects in the arts, for example talking about global issues, politics or religion. This week in math however, I was (once again) shocked by the precautions that need to be taken with some units, such as data management and probability.

©vecteezy

          I’ve learned this year that successful teaching is about getting your point across in a way that is interesting and engaging for the students. Often this means assigning tasks that seem like play but surround elements of the unit or topic being studied. For example, we’ve spent a lot of time this term playing and reviewing online math games that could possibly be used with our own students. When teaching data management and probability, one of the best ways to incorporate the elements of play is by using dice or playing cards. However, the use of these instruments can often be associated with gambling and therefore may cause an issue for some parents/guardians. This is not to say we should avoid using these tools altogether, as they can be very helpful. As teachers we just need to be ‘smooth’ about our practices. First, we need to get to know both our students as well as their parents (and family dynamic) before we begin testing any questionable boundaries. Second, we should learn to address these tools in a way that avoids the gambling issues. For example, we can use different names. Instead of dice, we call them number blocks, and so on as to ensure we are disconnecting them from their associating to gambling.

         

This is our Stem and Leaf data!

Pat consistently shows us the benefits of making small changes and altering typical activities in order to make them more fun and exciting. There are so many traditional games or tasks that have been done over and over throughout school and therefore can become less exciting for the students and in turn, cause them to be less engaged. One important lesson I’ve learned through this math class is we don’t have to break our brains trying to think of completely new activities, we just need to find ways to change old ones to make them more fun again. An example of this happened this week during class when Pat was talking about making estimates. Traditionally, this is done by talking about guessing how many jelly beans are in a jar. However for us, Pat used oreos in a jar instead. The activity remains the same and the educational aspect does not change, however it made it more exciting for us because it was something new!  Each member of the class estimated how many oreos were in the jar and then we used that information to make a stem and leaf plot. It was a great way to introduce a new concept!