Final Blog!

What was your greatest 'learning' this semester with regard to teaching children mathematics? How has your thinking shifted?

Reflecting back on this semester, and when we had our first math class I had no idea what to expect. I was walking in with no expectations, and a little nervous. I have always had a love hate relationship with math, and that has always made me nervous when I thought about how someday I would have to teach it. After having hands on experience with a number of activities in class and participating in the SNAP math fair, as well as teaching a lesson. I feel that I now have more confidence to teach a math class, that will not only be fun for the students but for me as well. 

My greatest learning definitely resulted from the realization that math is more than just one 'right' answer. I have always thought of math as being right or wrong, you either solved the problem correctly, and got full marks, or you didn't. I was so surprised by how open ended math could actually be, and that you can design lessons where students can be told that they are right, even if they did do a problem different than another student. It makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing, that I won't have to tell a student of mine that they are wrong, or mark an X on their paper. I also come to realize, that math is much more then just assessment, it does not have to be all about assignments, and tests.

I really enjoyed the SNAP math fair, and being able to go around and view a number of different problems that were all open ended, and had more then one correct answer. It made math fun, and less frustrating because you didn't have to worry about if you solved the problem the right away. I really wish we did more activities like that when I was in school, instead of always doing seat work from the textbook or handouts. I also really liked teaching a short lesson that dealt with open ended questions too. It was a great learning experience finding a problem and forming a lesson plan with it, and then being able to teach it. There are a lot of materials that you can use in your classrooms to help teach math to students and make it fun and enjoyable for them, which was something I never knew until this course.

Overall, I enjoyed this course and all it had to offer, it was a great learning experience and I feel better prepared to teach mathematics! 

Thanks for everything!