Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I have always enjoyed doing math and taking math classes. I think the reason I liked math was because the problems had a set of steps and as long as you followed those steps in the order you were told you would get the correct answer. I have always been good at following steps and therefore received good grades in math. Until this class, I never thought about the reasons behind doing the steps and having to follow them in certain order, I always just did them. I memorized the rules and followed them. After taking this class, I am now concerned about all the things I really didn’t know about math all along, the “why.” Why do the steps result in the correct answer or why does that rule work? For so many years, I have done math the traditional or instruction way without really knowing why. I know habits are hard to break and I want to make sure my future students know the reasons behind why math works and be able to construct their own rules. I want math to be relational for them not instructional like it was for me. In class, it has been hard trying to reconstruct what I already know about math and not resort to just using the formulas to find the answers. So far I have been able to follow along pretty well and after taking a look at the processes of why the steps and rules work and multiple entry points of problems I now have a deeper understanding of math. I am just afraid I won’t be able find a way to make all math relational to my students. I now know how to make the things we learned in class relational but what about math topics we didn’t cover. Will I be able to teach in a relational way or will I resort back to what I already know and teach the traditional way. How will I know what to do or how to teach? This class has really opened my eyes into a math world I didn’t know existed and now it is up to me to find the confidence to re-teach myself and find out more of the “why” behind the rules.