New Insights and their Implications

Looking back upon this course, I really feel that I have grown and progressed as an educator of mathematics. At the beginning of this course, I felt rather overwhelmed. I agreed with new reform based mathematical teaching, but felt like I would never be able to teach in this manner. I didn’t feel like my prior educational experiences had equipped me well enough to become a high-quality math teacher. Because I cannot change what has already been, so I decided to keep an open mind and a positive attitude about figuring “all this stuff” out. I have such a passion for helping students learn and be successful. As an educator, I want to provide my students with the best possible education that I am capable of providing. Students deserve nothing less than high quality, challenging educations, and it is my job as an educator to provide just that. I truly believe that as challenging and frustrating at times this course has been, I believe that I will become a better educator because of it. This course has really helped me see the importance of helping students develop problem solving and reasoning skills. I have learned how critical it is to develop cohesion for students so that they can continue to build, develop, and refine their knowledge about mathematics. When ideas are isolated and memorized, students can’t find purpose of meaning, but cohesion can help students continue to explore, build, and refine. Although I feel that I still need lots of practice with reform mathematics, I truly believe that from this course I have gained the tools to become an effective educator.