Thursday, September 27, 2007

Assignment #1: My Response to Conversation with Teacher and Student

How can I keep students motivated in math class? How can I make my math class creative and interesting, while still following the curriculum? What are some of the students’ views about math? These are some of the questions that I have been pondering over for the last few months. Having a conversation with a math teacher and student gave me some answers to these questions. However, even though the conversations Tom and I had with a teacher and student were very informative, I do not think I will ever get complete answers to these questions because the way math is taught and students attitudes towards math are always changing and every teacher and every student has a different view about math and how to teach it. However, I feel that this assignment was useful in letting us get a sense of how some teachers go about teaching math and what feelings students have towards math. Having these ideas will be very beneficial to us when we start our practicum.
We had a conversation with a math teacher who has only been teaching for a few years. However, I found this to be very beneficial because I felt that she could relate to us and the situation we are in now better than a more experienced teacher because she went through the same program not too long ago herself. I really liked the teacher’s idea of only lecturing for about 10-20 minutes at the beginning of class to introduce a new topic and then leaving the rest of the period for the students to practice what they learned by either doing questions or more creative assignments. I really liked this lecturing method and I want to try it myself because I think that students will not get very bored because the lecture time is not very long. I personally think that lecturing is important because, from my experience as a student and a volunteer, I found that students are more capable of understanding a topic/concept and how to work with that topic/concept when a teacher explains it to them, rather than if they have to read the textbook and learn it themselves. My grade 8 math teacher made us learn everything ourselves – he never lectured. The entire class found this very difficult, and the only reason I did good in grade 8 math was because my dad taught me everything. Moreover, I find the activities that she does with her students to be creative and interesting for the students, and I think that when I am doing my practicum I will do some of these activities with my class. Some of her activities include putting students in groups or pairs and having them do questions which they will either present to the class or teach the class. I think by doing these kinds of activities students get a deeper understanding of the topic because they have to teach the question to the class, and I think that a person really has to understand a topic to teach it to the class. I also agree with the teacher that telling students that math is used a lot in the “real world” and without math students limit some of their opportunities in university is a good way to motivate them. Overall, I found the conversation with the math teacher to be very informative.
The student that we had a conversation with is a lot like some of the students in my high school math classes: he is not very interested in math. I found that having a conversation with a student who is not interested in math was very beneficial because it gave us an understanding of what some of these students think of math and what recommendations they have for math class. I was not very surprised by the student’s response to how he would change the way math is taught. He had an answer to this question that I heard a lot during high school and while I was volunteering: remove all the material you do not use after you graduate from the curriculum. I do not think that the answer that he gave to this question is realistic at all because teachers have to teach what is in the curriculum. I know that when I start teaching I am going to have many students in my class who feel this way, but I will just have to motivate them as much as I can. However, I did find it interesting that this student acknowledged the fact that math is a major part of everyone’s life, such as Elaine Simmt’s article mentioned. I think that it is good that even if students do not like math, they still know that it is an important part of life and it increases their opportunities in university. I was most surprised by the student’s response to the use of technology. In an age where many youths cannot live without technology, this student said that math should be taught using the least amount of technology. He believes that students should not rely too much on calculators and computers because this will result in people forgetting how to do simple calculations. I found that students who I graduated with were less able to do simple calculations, such as multiplication, in their heads because they relied too much on calculators. I am glad to hear that there are now “no calculator” sections to tests to make sure that students are still able to do math in their heads.
Prior to my conversation with a math teacher and student I knew that I had to be a creative teacher who could motivate students because not all students are interested in math. The conversation with the math teacher gave me some good ideas of what kind of activities to do with students to keep their interest and to get them to really understand the topic. Whereas, the conversation with the student gave me a chance to come face to face with some of the feelings that students who are not very keen in math have about the subject. I feel that no matter how much I try there will always be students who detest math and complain about it in class; however, I have to help these students be as successful as they can in the subject.

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