New Insights and Their Implications

I have learned a lot about elementary school students from my peers, instructor, and the readings.  This class has given me such a big insight into other ways of teaching and how many students learn from different approaches besides getting the formula and practicing the formula.  It has taught me so much about how giving the formulas, working on the formulas, and giving the answers is not always the way to do the problem, althought that might be how I was taught.   I have learned about the fact that there are many ways that we can teach students and some students learn differently than others.  My peers have taught me about the many ways that students can learn through the many methods that they use in their LPUs.  The readings showed me the many ways and methods that teachers can use to teach elementary students.


This class has taught me a lot about myself.  I never thought of myself as an "instructional based" learner.  I have always thought that this is the way that everyone learns and there is no other method to teaching.  By going through this class, I have found out that there will be other ways that I can teach and it is not just the cut and dry way of teaching.  Their implications to teaching and learning mathematics are that students have different ways of thinking.  For one student, a paper and pencil test might be the best way for them to learn but other students might be better with a more complex way of thinking that does not give them the answer right away.

New Insights and Their Implications

This math course is definitely much different than any other math class I have ever taken. I am learning new perspectives on math concepts that I was once very confident that I understood. When we do example problems in class or go over homework problems I am surprised to see strategies that I never considered from my peers. It is surprising because I always thought everyone basically thought through problems the same way and took very similar routes to achieving those results. My previous belief has certainly been disproven. It is important to work with partners and in groups because it encourages students to share ideas and learn new methods for solving problems. Other math classes I have been in, both high school and college, were focused on individual work and involved little or no group work. However, there would not have been much reason for group work because all we would have done is take turns plugging numbers into a formula. Not a lot of higher thinking or reasoning involved.

Before the first day of Math Methods I was pretty sure that the class was going to be a hybrid of Math Concepts I and II with the addition of students teaching lessons. Clearly, I was mistaken. The instructor is introducing mathematical concepts that I know how to solve and then poses questions about these concepts that are foreign to me. This causes me to, basically, relearn these math concepts in a way that I actually understand the “why” questions of solving a problem. For example: why do we use pie to find the area of a circle or why do we flip the second fraction and multiply while dividing fractions? These are items that I have to reevaluate in order to ensure that my students, and me, know why they are solving a problem the way that they are. I do not want to teach students just to plug numbers into a formula without understanding how the formula was derived. I am developing a much deeper understanding for geometry and fractions and I hope to be able to pass my knowledge on to my future students through this new method of math teaching.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

The thing that I am most concerned about is how to do I switch the way I was taught how to do math; to how should I teach it? In all my math classes the teachers have always been there and helped me out if I was struggling. I know that everybody went through this same experience. I think I can speak for a lot of my peers. That this is going to be very hard to adapt to this new way. There are many times that I am frustrated with the material. Or when I am trying to figure out the homework and I just don’t get it. When you have been doing it in a certain way for so many years, it is hard to change your thinking and try a new approach. But, how can I make this switch? Not missing class, paying attention to the lecture notes, readings, and projects. This is very important that I understand how to teach in this way for my students. I don’t want to fall back on what my old teachers did. I want to learn this new way of teaching, it’s just going to be a struggle at times.