Personal Concerns and Next Steps

Upon entering this class, I really enjoyed Math. It has always been one of my favorite subjects and I felt as though I understood the basic concepts. For my internship, I helped in a 7th grade math classroom and I loved it. After that experience I had positive intentions of teaching Math in my future. Before taking this class, I was excited to learn how to break down math and learn more about teaching it to younger kids. After participating in this class, it has really made me look at math a whole different way. Some good, some bad. It makes so much more sense to teach kids on a relational basis rather than an instrumental basis. I came into this class strictly knowing only an instrumental basis of math. To me, the instrumental understanding makes sense because that is how I have always learned it. It also makes much more sense to teach kids a relational understanding of math. I am definitely more concerned now about teaching Math in my future because even I struggle with understanding a lot of what we are currently doing in class. If I have a hard time understanding it then I am worried about teaching it to my students. My concerns have been lessened a bit by understanding the process of teaching through concrete, semi-concret, and symbolic ways. I now understand better how to teach in those ways and how beneficial they are to students. I still struggle with it, but it is beginning to make sense. My next steps include trying to work harder in our math class to understand your styles of teaching and understanding the "why" part of mathematics. I think it is important for us to understand why we do stuff so I am going to continue working hard to understand that. Since this class I have developed a lot more concerns with teaching math in general as well as my own knowledge in math, but my next steps will include working hard to develop a more thorough understanding.