New Insights and Their Implications

What I found out most interesting thus far in our classes, was the fact that the United States is lacking in Mathematics. As such a diverse and advanced nation, it makes me think where we are leading our students in the future. Although, in our class, we are learning about the methods it takes to solve these problems that the United States are facing. For instance, the amount of time the United States has for each problem, compared to Hong Kong or China who take 15 to 20 minutes in just ONE problem. In the United States, we compare with just one to two minutes PER problem. We are learning more about the thinking and discussing part of math right now and how each child needs to investigate more deeply or how we as teachers can help provide a deeper understanding for that specific child.
What I also learned was that we should not only be looking at the South Dakota Standards of Math for our students, but we also need to be looking at the NCTM's standards. By looking at both of these types of standards, we will be teaching better and our students will be learning more math in depth. The NCTM's standards take an in depth look at what our students need to be learning for each standard. This is very informative in the fact that it outlines specific cases and examples of what we SHOULD be teaching our students and is detailed in the account of what each specific standard means. These two standards put together a more detailed look at what needs to be taught and a not so vague look at what each one is presented to be.
All of these insights have implications. They are all implicating that as pre-teachers we need to take a better approach at teaching mathematics in our classrooms. This class will help better our knowledge and teach us methods and strategies of math so that we are able to be the best teachers for our students!