Summary and Synthesis

I have learned interesting ideas from this math methods class. The most important part for me, is learning about the United States educational system. In class we have learned that the US is behind in mathematics when compared to other countries; yet, the US spends more money than these countries. I found it fascinating to learn why the US trails so many countries. Countries that are ahead of the US have a smaller focus (meaning they have fewer topics to cover) but the ideas they do teach have a higher degree of coherence (meaning the topics are linked together). The US tries to cover everything and the ideas have little coherence. Since the last blog, I have learned more ways to teach in a constructivism manner. I learned more about constructivism; it is a way that students construct their own knowledge about something. It is an inquiry and discovery manner of teaching and math learning. It was nice to have constructivism modeled for us in class. I liked the lessons and how they gave me examples of how to teach using problem solving. I have never been exposed to this much hands on math learning and I believe that this method of teaching is a ton better than the old method of teaching. I believe that if teachers adopt this method in the US, we will see improvement in our country's ranking in math comprehension. Since the last blog, I have become more of a believer in this new method math learning.