Skip to main content

Mathematics passed | Mathematical past.

The thing that inspired me most to learn and develop my mathematical concepts were the high school standards set out by the NCEA examinations. The concrete and well defined lines of where concepts sit, as well as the type of questions that were offered allowed me to have a strong grasp on where I needed to divert my attention. I guess you could say that clear learning objectives/outcomes are a good source of motivation for my learning.

What frustrated me were when these lines began to blur. When concepts became inter-related, or when classes didn't have clearly set objectives. I felt that my understanding of mathematics had been blown apart and I couldn't find a way to comprehend and stay on top of my studies. This was most apparent during my university years studying as a math major, particularly in the field of applied mathematics.

A math "teacher" that inspires me is Salman Khan, who is the creator of Khan Academy. His YouTube videos were clear in articulation as well as visual presentation. I used Khan Academy as a tool many times to brush on up concepts that I didn't have a good foundation in, and therefore was able to extend my understanding in certain areas of Mathematics.

A math teacher who I will try my best not to emulate - and I'm quite sure that I won't - is a high school mathematics teacher who, herself, did not have a strong grasp on the concepts that she was teaching. This only later became apparent when I was revising for exams and realizing that some of the techniques I was using to solve problems were actually incorrect. When I had originally asked the teacher about the question, she passed off information that was wrong, as correct, and I began to apply that technique in my problem-solving, only for me to later discover, that I had been doing it wrong. What bothered me most was not that she didn't know the material well, but that she was unable to admit that she was unclear on the subject. A much better solution in that scenario would have been for her to say "You know what, I'm not entirely sure, let me check with a colleague to make sure I give you the correct answer."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on Elliot W. Eisner's "Three Curricula that Schools Teach"

Eisner sets out to explain the three curricula taught by schools, including the 1. Explicit curriculum - what is made public through course announcements 2. Implicit curriculum - the socialization through physical and behavioural structures of the school and classroom 3. Null curriculum - what is left out from our explicit curriculum Through his theory of implicit education, Eisner makes his case that is it usually more important for a student to study the teacher, rather than the course content, in an attempt to achieve a good grade. The students reads the environment created by the teacher to establish to determine how much effort they should put into a class, particularly in systems that use behaviour modification techniques. How is it that we should go about cultivating student initiative and to develop intrinsic motivation so that students find the joy of learning for themselves, rather than to please their community - teachers, parents, and peers - through their achievements...
1 comment
Read more

Microteaching reflection

Yesterday, in small groups, we taught each other micro-lessons around a topic that was non-math/non-curricula. I decided to teach a lesson on a figure skating: waltz jump (on the ground) - Lesson plan in previous post. Reflecting upon the experience, I was a little nervous throughout the process, teaching a skill that I had done over and over again, but had not thought much about the learning of the process in over ten years. Although a clear lesson plan was drawn out, I did not review it as much as I should have, and smaller details were omitted. (Waltz jump along the arc of a circle and connects to the edges used.) My peers seemed to enjoy the task of learning about the skating boot, knee health, and performing the jump, and all written comments were positive. I ran out of material at the end, and as this was as far as I had done in figure skating, I wasn't entirely sure how to proceed from there. (This shows in two feed back forms that indicated that my area of improvement was...
Post a Comment
Read more

Letters from the Northern Front

As I read through Gerofsky's " Battleground schools: Mathematics education", it struck me to recall my mathematics education in New Zealand, and how much it pointed towards elements of the conservative and progressive approaches. I quite enjoyed mathematics up until the senior years of high school. However, at the university level, lectures and tutorials seemed to point to a conservative view. As I scanned down the table comparing the different elements of mathematics education (2008, p. 392-393), I found myself ticking off the assumptions belonging to the conservative column, although as Gerofsky mentions, this dichotomy is not always the healthiest ways to understand approaches to math education. However, it does reveal how much of my pre-conceived notions of mathematic education derive from my background as a mathematics learner, and how I now face a paradigm shift in the way I orient myself as a mathematics educator. In a bullet point that described who conservative...
1 comment
Read more