Math Teaching Strategies

This weeks reading was very interesting. The two articles that I will be focusing on are the readings from the 5 practices book and Turning traditional textbook problems into open-ended problems. These two readings were very intriguing to me because I agree with both and would like to implement them into my classroom. Explicit learning goals should be incorporated into each lesson that is present to students so that they understand why and how math is important. The most important thing is for students to know and understand the targeted point of the lesson. Within every problem should be an opportunity for new student thinking ideas, and this could be done by using problems that have more than one way to derive at the answer. This allows students to feel apart of the learning community and can also support classroom management. Giving students the learning goals of a problem and having them come up with their own solutions will demonstrate student thinking.

In my classroom my MT does not give the learning goals of a lesson and every problem she uses has one way of getting to the answer. Mrs. Henderson has showed the students how to solve certain problems, however many of them solve the problems in a way that they understand best. Even though she has not implanted this strategy for students, they have taken it upon themselves to engage in the math that relates to them. Most times she gets angry with these students and tell them to solve the problem the way she has showed them. I have noticed that the students who struggle in math either miss important steps in problem solving, or don’t understand the way in which the teacher has shown them how to solve the problem. Giving the students the learning goals at the beginning of a lesson, and providing them the opportunity to solve the problem the way they best see fit will allow the students to challenge their own thinking and can present some creative responses. 

Math Assessments

     Wow! This weeks readings were a bit intense. In our CGI book, I learned a lot about different types on math problems. I never thought that there was so much reasoning and processing behind the problems. Aside from the effort put into solving them, it takes a lot for teachers to choose the best work for their students. There is a lot of time that goes into pre-assessments, monitoring, and post-assessments. All three, however, are very important when it comes to strategically identifying the best problems for students.

     In my placement, the class textbook is Harcourt. However, my mentor teacher said that she RARELY uses anything from it. She said that she creates and designs the majority of the worksheets, homework, and other relative assignments that she gives out. When I asked why not, she said that she thought it was the best choice for her students. She said that she has students that are not, yet, at the level of the text and she has students that are beyond it. I think that creating your own worksheets and assignments is a great idea, but I think that teachers should still use the textbooks. I say that because the textbooks are leveled, so they will have a better gauge to use with their students.

     In addition to the CGI book, I also really liked the Cantlon article. My favorite part about it was when it mentioned teacher journals. Other than blogging and reporting-back in meetings and conferences, I have never really known for any teacher to keep a journal about their day-to-day teaching experiences. I think that it is an awesome idea, and I am inspired to keep one of my own. However, I feel that I will lose interest in it once I begin teaching for an extended amount of time, because it will get to the point where I will not have enough time to do it anymore.

     I think that our readings have greatly challenged my perception of math teaching. After taking courses like MTH 201 and MTH 202, I was confident about math enough to teach it to younger grades. The only issue I had with them was that it felt like they taught math pedagogy as more of a "Follow the textbook" method. From what I have physically seen in field, and read in our articles and texts so far, I am understanding that it takes more to teach math than being able to solve an equation and explain formulas. For example, I never saw long division problems as being multi-operational problems. I knew that there were several steps, but I just never saw them that way. I am looking forward to the rest of this semester and, more importantly, learning about more underlying mathematical teaching practices.