Common Core

            Every student learns differently from others. Some students may not even be up to the same level as average students because of learning disabilities. My mom is a teacher’s aide in a special education classroom. The students in this class have harder times paying attention and even staying on the task that they are given. So with this they will not be able to learn the same as a student in the regular education class. When it comes to the common core testing students will have a hard time with the test because they necessarily will not know how it is to do the work. This testing is not going to be fair towards any student. Even after having looked at one of the tests in my class I think to myself how do I do this? This whole thing of no child left behind is crazy because the students are just going to have to have the basic knowledge for these tests. As well as it is not fair to the students when they have to sit at the tests and look at it knowing that they have no idea how to do it. I know when I was sitting looking at one of the tests that they had for fourth graders I had no idea how to do it because it was very difficult. One day after the tests my mom had come home and was telling me about one of the questions that were for fifth grade students. I was amazed by the question and she had written down what the question was and just thought to myself this is crazy.  Now I have been in the classroom that my mom helps and I have seen how the students are and it makes me sad because I know that those students would not be able to know at all how to do it. Regular education students would have possibly a better idea of possibly doing the problem, but may of still had a problem trying to do it.

Visual Learning VS. Kinesthetic Learning

       Everyone learns differently some learn better some ways better than others. When it comes to math it would be better and easier to do it if it was to become more Kinesthetic. For me I learn better this way because its uses hands on. If there was to be ways that when it comes to problems for them to have some kind of an object that could help to see how the problem is done and have a better understanding. For some it can be harder to be able to learn from what a teacher is saying and going over in front of the class. When this is going on in a math class it is going to be much easier for a student to start to daydream and no longer be paying any attention to what is being said and then they will not know what to do for the homework or even a test. There have been many times that I was sitting in a math class in high school and I had completely zoned out because all the teacher was doing was talking and lecturing in the class. I had an understanding of how to do the work but it was still too boring. The class was algebra and I do not know how you can make that class more interesting by bring things that are hands on into it but it can still make it much better and possibly get the students to become more involved into learning the subject and not falling asleep as it is being taught.

As I have been sitting through my math class and we have been going over ways of teaching the students how to do fractions and integers. There are hands on ways to make it easier for the elementary students to learn. With the methods for fractions it did make it easier for me to be able to understand fractions better than before. Even the method of red and black chips for integers is an interesting way to teach integers. When I was at that age level I do not really remember learning that method to do integers. I keep having the feeling that all of my teachers I had when it came to math liked to just stand in front of the class, talk, and go over handouts that they would give us and never really go very far into it and make sure we had an understanding of how to do it.

Is Everyday Math to Hard or We Cannot do the Work Without a Calculator?

            Now a day with everyone having smart phones it has gotten too easy for us to just take out the phone and do simple math problems on the phone. This does not help when someone is given a simple problem and is told to do it in their head. It automatically becomes I do not know how to do this it is too hard for me. There have been times that I have done this and it makes me sad because I was able to do the math in my head and I no longer can because I let myself become lazy and just took out my phone to do the work. I have gotten better lately though when it came to doing math in my head because of the math class that I am in.

            In one of my jobs all of us could not count back money we have to use the register to tell us what the change is going to be. This is sad because as I stated before we are too involved with all of the technology to do any math on our own and need to have technology tell us the answer to everything. I have gotten better with trying to count money back but I always feel that I am not right and end up using a calculator to check myself that I am right. Constantly using calculators does not help us to know that we actually know that we know how to do the problems.

            Even as helpful as scientific calculators are they also pay a role. With these calculators able to make graphs and have the x,y plots, students would not have to do the work for it. It is very easy for students to not do any work and have it all done for then. It is very easy for the students to do the work but it will not be done. With the calculator showing the graph it could be copied over. Even the graph can be made very easily done as well. So the question here is do smart phones make us smart, or not?

Do Teachers Have an Influence?

To me teachers have an influence on their students. The teacher is the one who helps the student understand how to do the math. When a student does not understand how to do a problem they are going to go back to their teacher to get a better understanding of how it is to do that. The math teacher is going to have to take the time and help the frustrated student that why they will not give up on math. I do understand that the teacher is one person and may not be able to help each student but I will help the students to know that the teacher does understand that they need help and is willing to help them understand.

            When I was taking Geometry in high school my teacher was not very nice and she had only pick certain students that she wanted to help (I was not one of them). When it can time in class to do work on what she had just taught us, she would be walking around seeing if any of us needed help. Whenever I would raise my hand to have her help me she would walk right past as if she never saw my hand up and help the person next to me who also needed help. I hated going to that class because I did not understand how to do the math because my teacher had never wanted to help me. If it was not for another teacher I had to help me I would have never passed the class. Whenever I would go to my actually math teacher for help she would just blow me off like I was not there. I had given up in her class because I could not get the help that I had needed.

            Now when I was in senior year of high school I was in different math class but I cannot remember the name of the class but this teacher was much different from the teacher that I had for Geometry. This teacher helped everyone in the class when they needed it and if she knew that we did not understand something she would word it in a different way so that we could then possibly understand what it was that she was explaining. She had never made it that no one had to struggle through the class not understanding how to do the work. She was a very helpful teacher. Anytime I was confused with the homework and would go see her to try and get help on how to do it she was more than happy to help and it had made me very comfortable to know that I could go to her for any help that I needed.

           

Elementary Math Class

The math class that I have been in this semester has been nice. It has been helping me to understand the concepts of math. In the class we were not allowed to use calculators up until now, but I had thought that I was going to have a hard time with the class because I could not use a calculator. With the class being elementary math I should not have been worried about it because the numbers are not going to be huge that a calculator would be needed. I had just gotten use to using the calculator on my phone for everything. After going through the first chapter we were doing I had realized that I was worried for no reason and would not have a problem doing the work.  

I have not been having trouble understanding how to do everything in the class. The only thing is the homework’s that we have to do they are called take home there are a few different problems that we have to do. The problems themselves are not hard to do it is when I have to do the explanation of how to do it. I have been pretty much getting the same grade each one we do. I do think that I put more into the explanations each time I do them but I guess not. When we were going over the fractions chapter in the class, I had thought that I was going to do awful and not understand any of it because I never was able to understand it and do the work right. After learning and going through all of it I had a better understanding of it and I did not find it to be as hard as I had originally thought it was. I had also done well on the test when I had thought I was going to fail it.  

The class really is not that bad at all. It had helped me to understand the meaning behind keep, change, flip and why it is that it needs to be done. Just as well why it is we do certain things for each problem that we have. I had found math interesting going into this class so as I am learning about why it is we do what we do for the problems; math becomes even more interesting to me. This math class has made me even more interested into understanding the importance of the concepts that we use each time we use math.

 

Mathophobia

Now a days there are a lot more students who are becoming overwhelmed with mathophobia. Mathophobia is when a student does not do their math homework, tends to skip their math classes, freezes if they are asked a question during class, putting off doing any work for the class, or they will say that they cannot do math. Some students especially at a younger grade level will try to avoid doing math by saying that they need to go to the nurse because they need ice for something that is bothering them. They may also start to play with strings that they have on their shirts that way they no longer are paying attention to what is going on. Older students will have a different way of acting when it comes to mathophoblia. What does not help older students who have mathophobia is having a cell phone on them all the time. If they even have a simple problem they need to use the calculator on their phones.

At my job most of the people that I work with cannot count out their register without using their calculator to add up the totals of all the money. It is upsetting that a lot of students just cannot use their brain to do simple math anymore and that they have to use their cellphones to do it because it is that much easier for them than to try and figure it out without it. Although there may be times that a student does not have a problem with learning how to do math but whether or not it is boring. Many students will not focus in their class because it is not interesting to them. Many students prefer to do things that are hands on over just being lectured by their teacher. So this can have a part in if students have mathophobia or it is just students no longer having an interest in learning about math.

I had dealt with mathophobia when I was younger until I was in seventh grade. At that time I was terrified with anything that had to do with math and almost never wanted to do anything that was related to math it had all scared me. What also did not help me was that I had a teacher in third grade that would yell at us if we did not do the math right. He had made me practice over and over multiplication until I had gotten it right, but the more I did it the worse I got because I got so afraid and never wanted to look at it again. Then part of the way through third grade I had moved and started at a new school but the fear of math had stayed with me. I did try harder but it never got better for me. Then in seventh grade I had a teacher who had made math no longer scary to me. She had shown me that math is not that bad.