via GIPHY
I am now entering year two of teachers college at Brock University and I am very excited to be finishing up my program!! Reflecting on this week it was exciting to think about it being my last first day of school as a student to one day being my first day of school as an educator! A little food for thought.
So lets begin!
Our professor began the lecture with a card trick... yes you read that properly. I thought it was a fun way to get your students engaged, remove any nervous butterflies and get them ready to learn! The trick began by splitting the deck into two piles, and then splitting those two piles in half again. With four equal piles of cards on the table, our professor picked up the first pile, took three cards from the top and placed them at the back of that same pile. Our professor then took three cards from the top and distributed one to the top of the remaining three piles. These steps were completed for each pile and once that was done the top card of each deck was revealed and this was when everyones jaw hit the floor because each card was an ace!
CRAZY RIGHT?
So now everyone's excited because our professor told us it was an easy trick to learn and we got time to figure it out for ourselves so we could show our friends and family after class. So the class tried, and tried again but no one could get it. This is when the teacher moment kicked in and taught us that as educators our word choice is extremely important when we are talking to students. By labelling the card trick as "easy" it leaves students upset and frustrated when they cannot figure it out because they do not feel smart enough. Therefore, it is important as educators to never tell a student something is easy, especially if they are having difficulty understanding something. It is always great to tell a student that something is challenging/difficult/tricky that way when they understand or accomplish it they will feel successful. This also gets the student to open up to you when they are stuck, whereas if you as an educator told the student something was easy and they never got it, they may fear opening up to you again.
This is why students have negative attitudes towards math because they are told it is easy and once they cannot figure it out they do not feel smart enough. Students also often dislike math because of the amount of formulas they must learn to use and this can often lead to frustration if students do not know how to apply the formulas properly. Most students get scared at the amount of numbers in one equation or the different letters or symbols incorporated in math. Off the bat this discourages students from trying to solve a question since it seems overwhelming to them just to look at and they fear failing. This is a huge problem since math only has one correct answer but can have multiple ways of getting there. Students often do not like being wrong and find it embarrassing if it is in front of the whole class. Students also dislike math because they do not see the real-life connection on how to apply it and use it on a day-to-day basis that leads to students viewing math as a "waste of time."
 |
| Sean ManEntee. (June 10, 2010) maths.(Flickr Image). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2xZQgLN |
All of this can be avoided if we, as future educators can try to eliminate these negative attitudes within our classroom by making math a fun learning environment. Math CAN be fun! We just need to prove it and move away from these stereotypes that are clenching on to the word that kids hate most.
So heres a start:
A fun game to show your students is Game about Squares that we also played in our lecture this week. It allows students to work through different levels without instruction, so it is a game based on trial and error. This teaches students that mistakes are accepted and should not be feared as it shows you are challenging yourself as a student. Hopefully after students play this game they will take more risks to make mistakes and slowly eliminate that fear in the classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment