Blog Post #10: A Reflective Farewell

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to my blog for my final post! I have learned a lot through using this blog as a reflective outlet within my educational journey in teacher's college. As my first year of teacher's college is coming to an end, I think it is the appropriate time to look back on my own posts as well as my peers blog posts to extend my reflection beyond just my knowledge. 

While reflecting on my peers blog posts, I came across a post that Shauna made that I found to be extremely useful and relevant. Shauna's post explored the variety of virtual manipulatives that are available to both students and teachers to be used in mathematics. I really liked this post because it allowed me to see the value of virtual manipulatives, especially given our current state with the world in a global pandemic. Having to learn in an online setting has posed many challenges to the education system in general. However, an online setting poses various challenges to both teaching and learning mathematics specifically. Without face-to-face learning, students who learn mathematics best in a hands-on way have been negatively impacted. However, with the use of virtual manipulatives, teachers can ensure that these students are still engaging with the mathematical concepts in an interactive way that provides them with positive learning experiences. I love the relevance of this blog post because it allowed me curate more resources and tools considering virtual learning will likely become a normality moving forward.

Another blog post that I came across was written by Sydney H. In this post, Sydney talked about recognizing her progress in both approaching and working through word problems. I think that it is so important to recognize how far you've come in any situation, not just in mathematics. While I was reading Sydney's post, I was able to recognize my own progress in my confidence when teaching mathematics. I did not realize how many times I successfully taught a mathematics lesson or concept throughout my first year of teacher's college. I taught a math lesson in two of my classes and led a problem solving session and activity in my math class! Given that confidence is something that does not come easily to me, I am extremely proud of how far I have come in just seven months! I believe that recognizing and reminding myself of the progress that I have made will allow me to keep progressing in this journey of becoming a great math teacher!

As this year approaches an end, I am happy that I have taken the time to reflect upon my progress and collect useful teaching resources that I can implement within classrooms of my own and during my placements. I am very grateful for the many learning opportunities I have been given over this past year of teacher's college and cannot wait to embark on my very first placement. 

Here are a few of my proudest accomplishments over this past year!

I created a digital word problem!

A virtual mathematics classroom (that's me)!

I taught a grade 12 probability lesson!

Part 1 of my Grade 12 Advanced Functions Activity!

Part 2 of my Grade 12 Advanced Functions Activity!

Part 3 of my Grade 12 Advanced Functions Activity!
(The Jamboard Component)

Well folks... that's all from me! Thanks for tagging along on this really fun journey with me. Take care and stay safe everyone!

Signing off, 

        Ms. Blackwell

Blog Post #9: What is Math Anxiety?

Welcome back everyone!

Today, I am going to be discussing a very important topic with you all - math anxiety. Math anxiety is a very real thing that students experience and it is often dismissed by teachers when they are teaching and evaluating their students. 

As you may have read in the photo above, math anxiety is different from a simple dislike of mathematics. For some students, the act of engaging in mathematics instills many negative emotions such as failure and fear within them. These negative emotions become overwhelming and thus, impairs students' ability to successfully perform. Math anxiety can impact students as early as first grade through impacts on their working memory. An individual's working memory is essentially like a mental notepad or sketchpad - something that comes in handy when keeping track of numbers in mathematics. Unfortunately, math anxiety disrupts the working memory and causes students in both elementary and high school to fall behind their peers. It is important that even students without math anxiety develop positive study habits that enable them to grow confidence as math becomes more complex. 

Now some of you may be wondering... how does math anxiety even develop? Math anxiety can target children and students in a variety of ways. Some causes of math anxiety may include:

1. The Influence of Teachers

Students can easily pick up on a teacher's feelings towards mathematics. For example, if a teacher is excited about math, the students may convey these same emotions. However, if educators are negative towards mathematics or certain units of it, the students may also pick up on these emotions as well. Additionally, if teachers neglect to recognize the presence of math anxiety in their classrooms, this can also worsen students' level of math anxiety. 

2. The Pressure Caused By Time Limits on Tests

Students can develop anxiety towards mathematics due to deadlines that timed tests impose on them. This time constraint causes students to forget concepts that they have studied and would have no issues remembering outside of the test time. This causes students' grades to decline and confirms their fear of failure. Testing is a vicious cycle that is difficult to be broken once the math anxiety towards tests has developed.

 

3. The Fear of Public Embarrassment 

Math anxiety within students can also be linked to negative emotions and experiences in their past. For example, if a student has experienced laughter or anger from others in response to getting an answer wrong, it can make their math anxiety even worse. 

Now that we have established some of the main ways in which math anxiety can be developed, it is important that, as educators, we understand what we can do to help our students cope with this anxiety. It is our job to understand this anxiety and help to reduce it as they progress through their mathematics journey. Some tips when engaging with students who have math anxiety during lessons or after school help include:

• Positive reinforcement
• Suggesting a tutor
• Make math fun and engaging
• Reassure students that there is not just one way to solve a problem
• Allow lots of opportunities for students to ask questions
• Encourage positive self-talk

These are all important tips for educators to follow when interacting with their students in math classes. However, there are also some tips to suggest for students to try in order to help them overcome their math anxiety. Some of these tips include:

• Confidence + Preparation = Success
• Ask Questions
• There is more than one way to solve a problem
• Overcome negative self-talk
• Read your math textbook
• Go back to the basics if you need to
• Use technology for assistance too

Something that I saw online while researching math anxiety that really caught my attention was a poster that I now fully intend to put up in my future classroom. This poster screams positive reinforcement and positive self-talk. It encourages students to be nicer to themselves and understand that their best is still good enough. 

I hope that once I am in my future high school mathematics classroom that I can conquer these feelings of math anxiety within my students and allow them to grow and overcome these feelings of fear and failure.  I hope I was able to teach you all a thing or two about math anxiety and the importance in recognizing it and helping your students overcome it. 

Until next time... 

Signing off, 

        Ms. Blackwell