Underway
So, school has been in session for two weeks. It's about what I expected. Seventh and eighth graders can't be THAT much different from school to school, can they?
One room of eighth graders has really given me a hard time about the fashion in which I teach mathematics. I take a problem-solving approach. In a 45-minute period, we may solve only one or two problems. This is very much unlike any math class these students have experienced before. They are accustomed to a style I call "plug and chug." Computation problems are given and answers are expected, typically 50 at a time on a worksheet. Learn a skill, apply it a hundred times, then forget it, or get it confused with another skill you have memorized.
The difficulties here are two-fold. 1) This method relies heavily on memorization of steps, and not the concepts underlying the steps. 2) Most teachers in the United States learned this way. They figure that if they learned by plugging and chugging, it must be effective. Not so.
Today, I read on another blog, that bloggers are narcissistic. So, here, I toot my own horn. I have had several students in my three-year teaching career thank me for making math understandable for them. They hated math because they never understood how or why it worked. This proves my point. Once they understood WHY the steps worked, they had a much easier time remembering them.
The problems I pose require deep thinking and multiple mathematical skills. They allow for many different, but equally effective solutions. The idea is, after a while, students get comfortable with many problem-solving approaches, and they get a feel for which strategies work best in various types of problems. They get pretty good at recognizing patterns. Their estimation skills improve.
I suppose I could go on and on about how much more effective this style of teaching is, but the blog's personal, not professional. I will merely say that I bet this particular class comes around soon. I'm the only math teacher they've got, so they had better get used to me!
One room of eighth graders has really given me a hard time about the fashion in which I teach mathematics. I take a problem-solving approach. In a 45-minute period, we may solve only one or two problems. This is very much unlike any math class these students have experienced before. They are accustomed to a style I call "plug and chug." Computation problems are given and answers are expected, typically 50 at a time on a worksheet. Learn a skill, apply it a hundred times, then forget it, or get it confused with another skill you have memorized.
The difficulties here are two-fold. 1) This method relies heavily on memorization of steps, and not the concepts underlying the steps. 2) Most teachers in the United States learned this way. They figure that if they learned by plugging and chugging, it must be effective. Not so.
Today, I read on another blog, that bloggers are narcissistic. So, here, I toot my own horn. I have had several students in my three-year teaching career thank me for making math understandable for them. They hated math because they never understood how or why it worked. This proves my point. Once they understood WHY the steps worked, they had a much easier time remembering them.
The problems I pose require deep thinking and multiple mathematical skills. They allow for many different, but equally effective solutions. The idea is, after a while, students get comfortable with many problem-solving approaches, and they get a feel for which strategies work best in various types of problems. They get pretty good at recognizing patterns. Their estimation skills improve.
I suppose I could go on and on about how much more effective this style of teaching is, but the blog's personal, not professional. I will merely say that I bet this particular class comes around soon. I'm the only math teacher they've got, so they had better get used to me!
posted by Pegs at
1:45 PM
|
2 comments
