Truly Understanding Mathematics and Your Learners

Introduction

     Hello again to my readers! Once again I am excited to share with you my growth and development in math education with another week of knowledge into my brain. As I normally do, I like to break down what I have learned each week into themes and this week I have separated into two. The first deals with knowing your learners and creating a diverse instruction that can benefit different types of learning styles. The second looks at teaching math in a way that promotes understanding rather than speed.

Know the Learning Styles 

     It has been proven that people learn in different ways based on their senses and that reflects how they approach their own education. The three main ones are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Not only did I learn more about what each learning styles entail, but also what pedagogical decisions can be made to support them. In my teaching block experience I had a lot of students who were visual learners who received the benefits of when I used tactics like attaching visuals to math problems, using colour in my presentations, or encouraging them to draw out diagrams to help them with the problem. My auditory learners learned best when I explained each new concept in detail to them and when there was small group discussion about the problem. These are just some examples of tactics you can use for your own students with these learning styles. Finally, I believe that kinesthetic learners have the most difficulty in school because many teachers do not instruct in a way that helps them. I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who has a negative experience attached to education. He is the type of person that works great with his hands, but does not benefit from lecture style teaching. For these students you can manipulatives that they can hold in their hands in order to help them learn more effectively. For instance, when I taught addition/subtraction of integers I allowed the students to use blue and red tiles to represent a positive and negative integer.

Here is a link to help you determine the learning style you have. 

http://www.whatismylearningstyle.com/learning-style-test-1.html

Speed vs Understanding

     As I worked through the online modules this week I was once again reminded of the importance of having students struggle with deep questions that provoke their understanding. Too often in my experience as a student do I remember doing math drills and games where you compete with other students as to how fast you were at solving a math problem. Even today many online math games focus on the student being able to answer an equation quickly rather than provide a difficult problem. I remember one of the most effective math classes I taught in my practicum was when I had one challenging problem for the students to solve in small groups that took the whole period to complete. Here the students had to incorporate everything they learned and apply it to a scenario that really challenged their understanding of the concept. It was here I learned that students benefit more from open questions that really challenge their thinking rather than repetitive math drills. Math is not about speed, it is about true understanding!