What I loved most about our math class last week was that it did not seem like math. Now, when I say this do not intend to negate the necessity of math. Instead, this made me think about how we teach math to our elementary aged students. This past week in our math class we were able to explore Gapminder.com, which offers important world statistics in graphical form. This site is fascinating and instantly the whole class became engaged in manipulating this graphical information to display information that was most interesting or important to themselves. What I loved about this particular activity was that it did not seem like math, this was not your typical direct instruction lesson where the teacher gave us a new topic, demonstrated it, we practiced it together, then we were sent off to work it out on our own. Instead, we were set out to discover, interpret and essentially play with math.
Thinking back on this specific class made me think about how many teachers teach math today. Many teachers simply use the direct instruction route and this leaves many students fearful of their lack of what they think are math skills and they simply check out. What if we taught more math like this? With discovery. I do not mean to say here that there is never a need for direct instruction in math classes, instead I think there needs to be less of it. I personally would say that I do not like math. I am one of those people who never had the "math class" skills. Although, if you read one of the articles we previously read this quarter about math identities, I have many other mathematical skills. It was encouraging for me, with my lack of "math class" skills, to feel like I succeeded in class this last week, that i had something to offer my group and that I was interested in the content. Nevertheless, this class made me think about how I want to teach math, what to consider, and and how math should not only be taught in "math class".
It didn't seem like math to me either. It seemed more . . . dare I say, fun. The posters offered a creative component often missing from traditional math classes.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that it would be ideal to teach math in a discovery-type format, the school district's curriculum, MSP goals, and amount of teaching time are limitations to achieving inquiry math lessons. I'm not saying it's impossible to teach using the discovery method--just difficult with the arbitrary confines placed in our way.
Being placed in a seventh grade math class for my dyad, I can attest to the fact that the most used teaching method in my math class is still the direct instruction model. My master teacher is a wonderful math instructor, one who is able to explain concepts in three different ways. She tries to add discovery exercises but it is so hard to get the standardized math concepts across to all students in a 45 minute window.
I think it's worth trying to teach math in a more exporatory way, though. Math would mean more if we could discover, interpret, and play with it. Thanks for your thoughts.
I find the confines are not as confining as you might think. I watch second graders use discovery as a tool for exploring math at least once a week with promising results. I also see eighth graders, in a different school with a different teaching philosophy, never using discovery methods. The evidence of learning in this classroom is lacking at best. I know that there many factors involved when making comparisons of this type, but the blaring difference I see is the teacher’s willingness to do more with math than the bare minimum required by the district. The teachers who are involved in group efforts and are constantly working to improve every child's access to meaningful educational experiences have found ways to teach the requirements and so much more, in new and interesting ways. I view teaching to just meet the requirements as evidence of a lack of planning and a lack of imagination and initiative to find ways to improve the students' interactions with the material. We can teach the mandated curriculum in a meaningful way if we work as community within our schools, help each other find those avenues that work best and share them with others. Planning and improving as a teacher who provides those discovery experiences is teaching. The other is collecting a paycheck and is the main reason why students tune out. Our students know when we care about their success or when we care about checking a box on our district supplied to do list and will apply themselves to the content accordingly.
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