J/I Mathematics Blog

Blog Week One / Week Two 

In the last few classes, we have really been able to discuss and understand the different myths and negative thoughts that surround the subject of math. I think that it is so ingrained in our society that doing the math and learning the subject is a negative part of school each day. Even in pop culture both adults and students tend to have a negative attitude surrounding the subject of math, so of course, that would become a fixed mindset in both teachers and students. However, what was most interesting about the topics that we have discussed over the last couple of weeks is how much impact a growth mindset can have, especially in a mathematics classroom. Throughout these weeks we have talked about how many different myths and stereotypes come into play when someone is learning different concepts in math. One of the most common myths that students tend to hear is that some people are just born with the gift to grasp math while others are not. Thankfully, we learned that this myth is completely false, and it is in fact how much work you put into your study of math that determines one’s success in the subject.

            I think that the biggest take away from the first introductory weeks of class is that having a growth mindset will prove to be an asset as a future educator. It was interesting to see the video where kids received different praise for different parts of their work and how that affected their motivation, and their determination to try new things. We learned how crucial it is to a student’s growth to give them positive reinforcement based on their hard work not on their finished product. Placing praise upon a student for being smart actually puts a lot of pressure on them, and it forces them to think that it is the final product that matters most as opposed to the work that it took to get there. Instead, if teachers give positive reinforcement to the hard work that students put in to achieve their goals, it will motivate students to challenge themselves and ultimately learn more and gain more confidence in solving mathematical problems. If we want our students to really believe in their achievement, we have to show our students that we believe in them and want to see them succeed just as much as the student wants to succeed.

            Another important take away that I got from classes this week was how math needs to be addressed as something that we encounter in our day to day lives. If we do not show students relatable ways to approach math and show them how we encounter mathematical problems in our daily life students will fall into a fixed3 mindset. This fixed mindset that math is not a subject student will need in their futures does not motivate them to achieve anything, and in turn, this makes it harder for them to put in the work necessary to learn. If we show students relatable mathematic problems, they will see how important and relevant it is now and in their futures. 

Blog Week 3

  This week’s math class was quite interesting, I liked that we were given the opportunities to figure out various math problems in our own unique ways. I could see that each of the math processes we learned in the mindset module videos this week present in our class. Many people could find themselves most successful in some of the approaches that were mentioned in our modules. Going against tradition, entertaining new ideas without judgement, opening ourselves to different experiences, and trying to feel comfortable about being wrong, are some of the approaches anyone could take to make themselves more successful in math I think that each of these approaches to mathematics learning would be an important part of continuing to have a growth mindset when it comes to math, and it was especially interesting to see each of these approaches at work when we did a gallery walk and looked at the many different solutions our colleagues used to answer the same math problems. Personally, I think that the most important approach to improve my own experiences as a math learner would be feeling comfortable with being wrong. 
I think that a lot of student's anxiety surrounding math comes from the fear of getting something wrong, or not grasping a new topic as quickly as others. I know that the fear of being wrong was a huge part of why I hated to practice math because I automatically associated failure with wrong answers. A lot of students tend to think this way and this cannot motivate a person to want to learn more and continue to explore different ways of solving a particularly difficult problem. I think that if we as educators begin to change our thoughts around wrong answers,  teaching our students to see mistakes as a means of finding the answer we can have a growth mindset and make ourselves more successful in math. 
Overall I think the biggest takeaway I got from our mindset modules this week was that the most successful students are the ones who make mistakes, learn from them and continue to keep trying different ways to continue on with their work. It is so important to break out of the fixed mindset that was so prevalent when we were in math class years ago. Thankfully,  we are moving in a better direction to help our students become more motivated, confident and ultimately more successful in math. This week's lessons made me realize the impact of a growth mindset classroom. Encouraging students not be overly critical of their learning ultimately make them more successful learners. In my classroom, I hope to help my students to feel confident in their mathematical skill and understand that the only failure in math class is making mistakes and not continuing to try. 

Blog Week 4

This week’s topic was all about collaborative math and how many ways individuals can find their way to the answer of a given math problem. In school, I was always told that math was an exact subject and that I could only reach an answer by using the strategy that the teacher taught us. We were never given the opportunity to explore and create new ways in which we could reach the correct answer for a given question. Now that this fixed mindset has changed I am constantly pushing myself to work past the anxiety I have towards solving math problems. I would like to continue to have a growth mindset when it comes to teaching mathematics. In the past, when I approached a math problem I found myself thinking more about remembering the steps that my teachers taught me years ago, rather than thinking about how I can solve this mathematical problem in my own creative way. I think that at this point I am not as flexible with numbers as I would like to be, but it is my personal goal to work past that and become more creative and flexible when approaching a new math problem. In taking these steps to change my fixed mindset to a growth mindset I hope to pass that on to my future students so that they never have to grow up with the same anxiety toward math as I did.
I think that the notion that mathematics is a solitary subject where students need to solve problems all on their own is a huge cause of mathematical anxiety. In the example, we saw in the module videos this week it was proven how collaboration is a fundamental part of learning to solve math problems. I think that collaboration in solving mathematical problems in the classroom will ultimately improve student’s achievement in a significant way. I think that this significant increase in success is because students are now able to share ideas and collaborate with their peers to work their way towards the solution. When the students were able to talk about how to find the way to the answer I think that it made it easier to practice their math reasoning skills, which as it was explained in our weekly modules the foundations of math are in the development of reasoning skills.


When you work on math questions on your own it is harder to understand them and work your way towards an answer. When someone is given the opportunity to collaborate on different mathematical problems, they have access to a better understanding of the problem. As we saw in the 18x5 video, every person has a different way of solving any kind of math problem. When students are given the chance to collaborate on new concepts, they can work with each other's creativity to solve the assigned problem. In doing so, students are still applying their own math reasoning skills in a more engaging way to work towards the answer to the problem. To conclude, I think that collaboration is an important way to eliminate math anxiety in the classroom and ultimately engage and motivate students to take on new challenges and achieve new levels of success in math class.

Week 5 Blog Post

https://bit.ly/2OYWxE6

This week in our online modules it was made clear how much more important it is to teach our students the core ideas when doing math while also leaving students with enough time to solve problems in their own creative ways. We should always be giving our students the help they need to make sense of the mathematical concepts taught to them. After completing the modules this week I believe that we must encourage our students to trust their intuition and continue to keep trying to find their way to the answer. As educators, I think that we must help students make their own connections when learning math, and steer them away from just having students memorize a step by step formula. I think that when we show our students how to think critically about a given problem they will be able to draw their own intuitive conclusions and make sense of the new information they are learning. In my classroom, I would always make sure my students knew that when they are approaching a problem there is not only one correct way to find the answer. I think that one of the ways in which I would practice this in my own classroom is that,I will always encourage my students to draw out and show their thinking. I think that each student has an individual learning process and as educators, we must be flexible and present lessons that can adhere to the unique people in our classrooms. When students are encouraged to show their own unique thought process on paper they learn how to carry out their own plan to solve the problem. In using this strategy I think that this would ultimately help students to understand better. I have always felt that representing and drawing out different solutions to any given math problems is an efficient way to make learning equitable to every student's needs while enabling them to use their creativity to find the solution. After I completed the modules this week I think that I now have a better understanding of the fact that math is a subject with a few core ideas that we must understand in order to be successful. However, we hinder our intuition and critical thinking skills when we simply just memorize formulas to solve a given problem. When we only teach formulas we don't actually put any of the fundamental concepts of problem-solving into practice. We should definitely be encouraging students to move away from this and guide them into making their own connections, to help them fully grasp how to approach and work through problems on both worksheets and in real life.

Week 6 Blog

Another important concept that we covered in class over the last 6 weeks has been the importance of having a growth mindset when it comes to math. As I am sure I have mentioned before a lot of student's anxiety surrounding math comes from the fear of getting something wrong, or not grasping a new topic as quickly as others. I know that this was something I struggled with in my own math classes in grade school. Overall I think the biggest takeaway I got from our classes over the last six weeks was that the best way to help our students become most  successful teaching them that mistakes are in no way equal to failure, instead we should help our students to understand that we learn from our mistakes and when we continue to keep trying different ways solve the problems presented to us that is where the most meaningful learning happens. Its great to see that in our teacher’s education the ideas have drastically changed from what we were taught in grade school.  It has been abundantly clear that we are moving in a better direction to help our students. Using a growth mindset when it comes to math will be the best way for students to become more motivated, confident and ultimately more successful in math.

When I began this course six weeks ago I think that I had a different mindset when it came to approaching math. In our math course last year, I found that it was heavily focused on building resources that we could use going into our first teaching blocks, this year I found that our math course had different support strategies to offer before sending us into our second teaching block. I really liked that we thought about how important it is to encourage students to approach problems in their own creative ways. The activities that we did in class gave us great strategies to use in our own classrooms as well as giving us first-hand experience of how important it is to show our students that we can find our own ways to the answers of our problems. This week one of the things that stuck out to me from completing the modules is how beneficial technology can be for students when it is used correctly. I think that technology can be a great tool when students are learning to use and apply mathematical reasoning skills. There are so many great apps that can support students with exceptionalities in the classroom making it applicable to everyone in the classroom, especially those with exceptionalities. Technology is a huge asset for students however teachers must ensure that the apps they choose to use are meant to encourage both meaningful and purposeful ways of learning to approach math problems. I thought that the week six modules worked really well in tying in all of the things we have discussed up until this point. However, after completing the week six modules I think that the most important thing we could teach to our students is how we can see and apply mathematical thinking skills to our everyday lives. My group and I thought that this was so important we made it the major theme of our unit plan. We each worked collaboratively to figure out how we could connect the key concepts of math to the everyday lives of our students. There have been many instances in which students question why they are learning a certain type of math when there is no way they could use this in their own lives. However, we can use our mathematical reasoning skills in so many ways and we thought that the culminating task that my group members and I created really would reinforce this concept to our students. The task that we came up with involved students to use their mathematical reasoning skills in their own creative ways. In our rich performance task, we thought that we would instruct students to plan and organize their own dream birthday party, with only one important guideline, they had to keep their costs within their $150 budget. I think that ask educators we should create assignments such as the one in our unit plan that aims to encourage our students to see the ways in which they can apply math reasoning skills in their lives. We all agreed as a group that using this kind of assignment students would be more engaged because it was so heavily rooted in personal inquiry. Using assignments that can incorporate students’ personal interests will fuel their inquiry and further reinforce their mathematical reasoning skills because they can see how this concept can be applied in their daily lives.