Personal Concerns and Next Steps - You may blog about genuine personal concerns created as a result of the experiences in this course. (Please note: If you blog on this item be sure to provide sound rationale for your concerns and what steps you are planning to pursue to address your concerns. This is not an opportunity to vent, be constructive and professional about it. Don't complain about something unless you offer a better alternative or solution.)
So far in this course, I am concerned with my own personal skills in math and whether that will translate well into a grade or my ability to teach mathematics to my future students. I personally have no faith in my abilities in math and at some points; I am scared to even try for fear of failure. I have had an anxiety toward math since I was little. I will also admit that I was fearful of even beginning this class considering my past relationship with mathematics. To address my concerns, I am going to do my best in this class and try to take in as much information and ideas as I can in order to allow my future students to have a better chance of success and more positive feelings toward mathematics. I resolve to take the assignments, readings, and activities one step at a time and ask for help if I it’s needed. I feel if I take an optimistic attitude toward the class I might find a chance for myself to become competent in math methods and even being to enjoy it to some extent.
New Insights and their Implications
ReplyDeleteI have already learned a lot through just a couple of times we have had class. I guess what I first thought of math was what I was taught in grade school up to some of my college courses, which was to me was a regurgitation of the text back to the teacher with either a quiz or a test. But I think about the implications of just regular teaching to students and I can see the draw backs. I think with the help of the Timms testing we have learned that we are lacking in focus, reasoning, coherence, and sense making. I have found why students need to know this to be successful in math for a life time. I have also learned a lot about problem solving in a classroom and I think I will have one to two models of problem solving hanging up in my classroom. I think students need to know the required steps of solving a problem and also that there isn’t clearly one way of solving a problem. I think overall I have a better concept of thinking about math more constructively and I also believe that at times the STATE standards suck.