Search Topic: Investigating methods in improving student engagement of mathematics in the classroom.
Analyse your Topics into Concepts:
A: Building a math environment that encourages students to make mistakes and explore ideas.
B: Using comedy, visuals (animations) and stories/events to engage students in mathematics.
C: Using interactive problems and hands-on experimentation to engage students in applying mathematics
Do Grades matter?
From my “student bird” perspective, I personally have found
comfort in grades and percentages I did not think much about what they actually
meant, but more of something to try to achieve. Maybe I had always done well in
standardized test and in school in general so grades were relatively attainable
and I did not feel the stress that other students felt. I tried to keep my marks
to myself and so comparison or competition did not really cross my mind. The
only time that stress began to creep in was in Grade 12, where there was
competition to enter university. I might be dating myself a little but my grade
12 year was the last year of grade 13 in the east coast so there were
significantly more students trying to enter university at a time when grades
were all that mattered for university entrance. So, I do see the validity of the
argument that grades can cause stress and competition among students. As a
teacher, I see grades as basically a tool for accountability in teaching. It is
merely an easy way to demonstrate that a teacher has done some work in order to
evaluate students. It is far from effective was a gauging a student learning
but many teacher clings to the percentages as a way of standardizing their work
and providing some level of accountability in their teaching.
There are some key side effects from using percentages and
grades in schools is that they foster a need for competition, an atmosphere of anxiety
and an imbalance of power in the classroom. I feel although unavoidable, grade
put a teacher at a position of power and this makes it difficult for students to
truly feel safe in the classroom. There will always be students who pander what
they think the teacher might like or want, but not actually pursue their own
learning. They simply seek a meaningless number of letter on a piece of paper in
order to feel successful. And this too is unavoidable. There is always pressures
to enter university, pressures from home and pressure from peers for a student success.
I feel that while the school system is established to help students learn, it
might not help students learn to the best of their ability. Students are merely
forced to learn by a system that puts too much value on a letter or a number
that might not even truly reflect a student’s learning.
I believe that it is definitely possible teach math and science
without the emphasis on grades. As “math people” we take comfort in the numbers,
the quantifiable and the structured, and it seems not very structured to teach
to a student’s learning rather than a specific percentage or grade. There just
seems to not be enough accountability. But, I argue that as the BC Curriculum
has moved to standards-based assessment, we as math teachers too can move from
the rigid box of percentages and grades to teach towards a student’s understanding,
giving them multiple opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in their learning
and move away from the punishment of grades and percentages.
Both of videos were very interesting. There seems to be some
common ideas such as student engagement. In the first video Jo Boaler described
the idea that the world today has a much greater need for mathematics than in
the past, I had not really thought much about this but it is a great point to
bring up. In our more technological world, math truly has grown in importance
and become a more essential part of our lives. It was also concerning that the
speaker brought up that there is a decrease in math fluency in the world at the
same time as the importance of math increasing. I can honestly agree with this
video about the idea the numeracy is important in our lives and to not
understand numbers is much like being blind in our colorful sight-oriented
world. A lot of people see mathematics as something to be studied in a
classroom with little value in real life, but, I see math as so much more. With
a more inquiry-based approach to learning students can come to realize the manner
facets math that extend well beyond academics, reaching out to touch every
aspect of a student’s life. The second video did not mention the idea of
inquiry but I feel that it linked up nicely with the first video emphasizing
the need for student engagement in order to have the best outcomes for our
students. I feel strongly that grades should not be the main driving force behind
a student’s learning in the classroom and that our goal as educators should be
to prioritize a student’s learning goals in our classrooms. Thus, the move
towards standards-based assessment can be beneficial not only in reducing stress
for our students, but also create a more wholistic learning environment for our
students.
The article was really interesting. Being a person who does
not really like being outdoors. I find comfort in structure and safety of the
classroom environment. To this extent, I had not realized how Eurocentric ideas
can be expressed and be influential even in the structure of building
themselves. I see buildings as mainly “a place that keeps me from being too hot
or too cold” and not as a social construct that influences us on a deep
intellectual level. Although like the structure and order of the classroom, my
preferred organizational method is order in chaos. It might look messy to you,
but I know exactly where I left everything. In my teaching, I hope to foster
the idea that there are different forms of learning and understanding and one
is not necessarily better than another. One key aspect of being in the outdoor
classroom is that we would no longer be bound by constructs of a classroom and
therefore have the freedom to explore other ways of knowing and coming to
different levels and types of understanding than we would in the classroom. As
the article states, the garden classroom allows students to be more reflective
and learn from more senses than the mostly visual delivery of the regular
classroom setting. One metaphor that resonated with was the ideas of classroom
as parkour or like swing music. As teachers we often need to go with the flow
and within the structures of school, teach in a way that suits the needs of
ourselves and our students. I’m not sure if there is anything I really disagree
with the article though I don’t know if I would put such importance into the
structure of school governing the mindset of the people that work within them.
Perhaps I’m not as progressive as some but I take comfort in tradition and
structure and although I am willing to try new approaches to teaching as it
might be best to support my students.
"I like to rise with the sun she rises........."
This class always surprises me on what a math classroom can look like. Being out in nature and our surroundings as a guide for teaching is a wonderful tool to keep students engaged. I personally don’t really like being outside. I enjoy the structure of the classroom and being shielded from the elements. I have, however, come to realize and appreciate the value of the outdoor classroom and its use as a teaching tool for mathematics. The “sit spot” activity is one that causes a lot of reflection on not only the environment around us, but of our own bodies and thoughts. It’s somewhat peaceful and calming to simply be in one place and to concentrate on one’s own senses. It allows us to slow down and reflect on what is happening all around us; to see what we normally miss in the hectic nature (teacher education….) of our daily lives. It’s a great activity for students to ground themselves and prepare for the learning that is about to happen. The next activity, using geometry to approximate nature was also one that was somewhat calming but at the same time educational. We use our more rigid systems geometry to approximate the seeming chaos and yet somehow ordered and symmetrical properties of nature into a piece of math art that can at the same time teach us about mathematical theorems. These two activities were great ways of keeping the students engaged and to be able to teach the students mathematical concepts in a new way was rather eye opening.
"and ramble in the new morn hay......"
There are couple of points from the article that really
resonated with me. Mathematics as a subject is often seen as a purely academic discourse
with little relevance to the real world. Often, students who are “good” are math
are “good” at calculations but not necessarily “good” at the greater scope of
mathematics. As I have slowly learned this year, Mathematics can been experienced
in many forms such is in art, geometric, nature, music, daily life and in the
sciences. While this idea was in the back of my mind throughout my academic career,
I really had not given it much thought. With the movement towards the (not so)
new curriculum there has been a greater emphasis the on not so much pure
mathematics as with numeracy and being able to actually apply mathematics to
daily life. This brings me to the first point in the article that resonated
with me. The author mentions that integrating the environment into the discourse
of the mathematics classroom creates a more genuine mathematics education speaks
to the idea that be allowing student to relate mathematics to something more tangible
to them such as the environment makes math more meaningful to them and will
have a greater impact. Another point the resonated with me is the ideas that
emotions play a crucial role in decision-making and human action and that we
need “feel” the numbers or the effect on us would be diminished. I feel that in
order to “do math” effectively we need to be able have a feel for numbers. It
is an important skill for students to be able to give a number context, without
context numbers are meaningless. You are simply shuffling things around to get
a result. With a feel for a number, you are able to better understand a problem
and to be able to determine if there is merit to the answer you obtain after
calculations. I feel that mathematics is much more than just meaningless
calculations, it is a living language that allows us to come to deeper understanding
of the world around us.
