The Importance of Connections

People often dislike math because they believe that math involves memorizing rules and methods, and should be learned in isolation involving correct/incorrect answers. They also often believe there’s no room for creativity and they need to be able to do math quickly in order to be good at math. These assumptions/beliefs are incorrect and don’t accurately represent what math is about.

In order to facilitate healthier beliefs about math we need to allow students the opportunity to explore math reasoning (i.e. discussing ideas and problems with peers and allowing them to 'reason' to an answer).

In addition, we need to teach math in the context in which it exists rather than in isolation to any other mathematical concept. The video below summarizes this idea.


By presenting students with the opportunities to explore math and also by showing them where math can go, I think we can inspire creativity and a curiosity in math that will allow them to be successful. 

Comments

  1. Unknown2 October 2016 at 09:25

    I really like your point about teaching math in context. Sometimes we forget how important putting things into context is for understanding. I know that it is so easy to get lost in the details that we often overlook this idea. Providing students opportunities to explore does take time. I think teachers always feel so pressed with fitting things in and keeping to the schedule that we easily forget to let our students take their time to develop ideas. Something I will continue to think more about!

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  2. Anonymous5 October 2016 at 14:06

    Hi Megan,
    I like that your posts focuses on teaching students to enjoy math through being creative and not putting time restraints on their math learning. Exploring through math is so important to engage students, especially when we allow them to look into things that interest them. I think you made a great point stating that there are many different places math can "go" and we need to facilitate that drive in our students to find out where math can really go! Great post.

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