Miss M's Learning Space

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. 

Professional Teaching Goal It's all about the connections. http://fondationdiagonale.org/connectedness/ Since social studies, history, and geography (which I have shortened to ss/h/g for the purposes of efficiency) are so closely tied to what's happening in the world around us, I think I need to spend more time reading the news and staying connected with current events. In class, we had a large group discussion where we talked about past events related to current events was a real eye-opener for me. And when I say current I mean literally that day. Everything that happens can be related to something that happened in the past or something that happened somewhere else. However, prior to that discussion I didn’t know that much about current events. Granted, I’ve heard of almost everything, but I don't really ‘know’ much about it, let alone know enough to make the kinds of connections I'd need to in order to facilitate current, relevant learning for my students. Mov...