Weekly Reflection 1

Hey everyone!

So, I have a few things I want to discuss in my first blog post about what I have experienced thus far along my math journey.

Math Refresher Course

I wanted to start off with discussing my experiences with the Elevate My Math refresher course. At first, I was very discouraged, as I was very overwhelmed by the length and level of the questions I was expected to answer. As mentioned before, I haven't had to use math in a very long time, and to my dismay, I had forgotten everything I had once learned. The questions were very challenging, and I found myself wondering and complaining about the whole experience – claiming things like, "I definitely did not learn this in grade 7 or 8" or, "I can't believe I don't know this, everyone else probably didn't even struggle at all." Right away I was discouraged, unconfident in my abilities and anxious about how I was going to ever finish it.


This is where I want to pause and reflect. 


Within 10 minutes of trying to figure out question number one, I was frustrated. It's this attitude that I want to ensure stays at a minimum within my classroom – ideally, not present at all; however, I know this is a challenging goal. The more I thought about others knowing what to do, the more I thought of myself as a failure; this mindset only pushed me further and further into despair. It wasn't until I cleared my head and realized, I could only do the best that I could do – I wasn't going to get kicked out of teachers' college because of it! Once I put on that mindset, I began to feel more relaxed and able – my confidence grew, and if I didn't know an answer, I shrugged and said, "oh well, that is what the refresher modules are for." 

So why could I not come into math with this attitude?

As a teacher, I hope to create a classroom that challenges why we feel anxious about math. I want to foster an environment where students see something that they don't know, and instead of fearing failure, they are excited about the failure and challenge that awaits. I want my students to realize that their growth as a not only a student, but an individual as well, will only come through failures and mistakes. Instead of fearing that their desk partner got the answer before them and they don't know, I want them to ask that student for help and not see it as weakness, rather, an opportunity for growth. I want to create relationships that are two-way streets; I hope my students will teach me methods of learning and ways to get there, just as I will for them. With that being said, I want to discuss the idea of a growth-mindset from our first class.

Growth Mindset

I have included a short video below to summarize what a growth mindset is to you guys who may not be familiar with it. While this plays an important role within our personal lives, I feel it fosters great meaning within the mathematic community as well. Instead of straying away from challenging opportunities due to the fear of failure (a fixed mindset), individuals with a growth mindset understand that failure may occur, but see it as an exciting way to learn. Individuals with a growth mindset believe that their "basic abilities can be achieved through dedication and hard work" and are not "simply fixed traits" (Growth Mindset). I recognize myself that this is an area of improvement I need to work on – especially in regards to math. How can I teach my students to have this mindset and not fear failure if I can't myself?

Oh, and by the way, when I started talking to others in my program about the math refresher course, we ALL were experiencing the same feelings. Here I was thinking that I was the only one struggling! This is an experience that I hope will guide my attitudes within the math classroom.




Sprouts (2016). Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUWn_TJTrnU&t=29s

Ways of Getting There

Lastly, I want to discuss this attitude in regards to teaching and understanding math. In order to actually have this attitude, the ways we, as teachers, teach our lessons have to allow for new ways of thinking. Math is starting to stress less about the aspect of time constraints, especially in areas such as developing fact fluency. Research shows that it is not about the speed of answering 2x3, rather, it is about our process of how we got to the answer. We each make meaning differently, so why should we all be expected to get to an answer in the same methods? The text highlights the importance of allowing students to explore, make their own algorithms and teach these findings to other students. Giving students opportunities to explain their thought processes is much more important than arriving at the traditional way to go about an answer. 

Figure 1

Figure 1 from the text shows a student's work who justified her ways of figuring out a math problem; her explanation makes perfect sense, even if it is not a traditional approach.

Figure 1

Figure 2 from the text shows a traditional style of teaching and answering a question vs an alternative method that may better suit a student's understanding.

References:

Small, M. (2016) 3^rd  Edition. Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students, K-8.3rd Edition, Toronto, Nelson.   

Sprouts (2016). Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUWn_TJTrnU&t=29s

Growth Mindset (2013). The Glossary of Education. Retrieved from https://www.edglossary.org/growth-mindset/

Student frustrated with difficult math (2015). Clipart Guide. Retrieved form clipart guide.com