Improving mathematics Essay Example for Free

Improving mathematics Essay It is important for Mathematics teachers to create an atmosphere in which the subject is not seen to be outside of the student’s sphere of involvement and therefore irrelevant. Mathematics techniques that relate the subjects to things in the everyday world will more readily grasp the student’s attention and get him or her fully involved in the learning process. Mathematics can become more powerful and engaging if it is built â€Å"into an extended inquiry on a topic of importance for [the] subject, for students, and for the world at large† (Daniels Zemelman, 2004). Since the techniques practiced in the subject are used by people from retailers to engineers, teachers should take real life situations to the classroom and connect them to each lesson. For example, since the world’s population has been growing exponentially, it is possible to illustrate a lesson on exponents using such an example (2004). The constructivist idea that learning should be predominantly an active and social experience should be applied to the teaching of mathematics (Crowther, 1997). Although it is easier to ascertain the level of achievement of a given student via individual work, it is possible for students to gain much more from learning sessions if they are allowed to interact with their peers while completing tasks. This has several advantages, but two very important ones are these: It gives students the opportunity to gain different perspectives on the problem as well as the chance to have the theory explained in a novel way. Since students are more in tune with the way other students think, those who understand the problem will be able to re-present it to their fellow struggling students and to reveal the nuances of their understanding possibly in ways that the teacher had never considered. The other benefit of allowing interaction is that it gives the teacher time and space to visit—not just individual students, which would take the entire class period, but groups. Within the groups, salient issues will likely have already come up, and will most likely be revealed more readily by the students, as the group setting reduces the embarrassment that generally attends airing one’s ignorance on a topic. It is often during working and not teaching that students â€Å"realize† that their understanding of the topic is limited. Creating an atmosphere in which questions will arise and will be easier for the student to ask is a general teaching method that will improve the mathematics learning. A very important and unnerving part of mathematics teaching is the assessment. Assessment has generally been used as a tool for screening and separating students who have an aptitude for mathematics from those who do not (Linchevski et al. , 1998). However, this use of assessment (along with ineffective teaching methods) has contributed to the hatred that many have of the subject (Cock Pickard). Instead, if assessment were used consciously as a tool to determine what students need to learn, it would become a more effective tool in teaching (Linchevski Kutcher, 1998). Inevitably, some (if not most) students in a class will attack at least one problem and come up with the wrong answer. However, during assessment it is necessary for the teacher to scrutinize the process. Mathematics problems can be considered similar to an essay in that the student allows the teacher a glimpse into his or her mental processes via the different steps taken to get from one level in the answer to another. The faulty reasoning that leads to these erroneous steps is the area in which students need help. Planning is a very important part of teaching mathematics, and it can be used in conjunction with this kind of assessment to benefit the students (Linchevski Kutcher, 1998). It might be found that several students make similar errors. In such cases, the teacher has the opportunity to plan general lessons to address the areas in which students have shown weakness. If only a few make similar errors, for one class period following the assessment students could be grouped according to the areas in which they demonstrated weakness. The teacher would then be able to move around to each groups and explain where the members went wrong. References Cock, S. P. Pickard. â€Å"Improving student learning on entry level mathematics courses through course design. † University of North London. http://homepages. north. londonmet. ac. uk/~pickardp/oxbrk696. htm Crowther, D. T.(1997). â€Å"The Constructivist Zone. † Electronic Journal of Science Education. Vol. 2(2). Daniels, H. S. Zemelman. (2004). Subjects matter: every teacher’s guide to content-area reading. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Linchevski, L. and Kutcher, B. (1998). â€Å"Tell me with whom you’re learning and I’ll tell you how much you’ve learned: Mixed-ability versus same-ability grouping in mathematics. † Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. November. Linchevski, L. , R. Liebenberg, M. Sasman A. Olivier. (1998). Assessme.