The all too familiar question that I so often experienced from the students over my last two student teaching experiences... "Ms. P, I'm not trying to be rude, but why do we have to learn this?" Looking back on this experience, I realize that my students asked this question because, as Zull (2002) states, "we will always be motivated to learn things that fit into what we want and to resist those that don't..." (p. 65). If students don't see the material as information that aligns with what they want in their lives, then they most likely have little motivation to learn the information. This all makes sense, but I have never thought of it in terms of cognition before. This ties together so many aspects of, in my opinion, an effective lesson. The need for real-world application and the need to incorporate student interest isn't simply because it appeases the administration, these things are necessary for student motivation. And once the students are motivated to learn, there is no telling what potential the lesson has! In addition, providing opportunities for students to use the content, in my case- math, to find errors in each other's work is necessary. This simple task is a real world application of math... you can use math as a tool to make sure you aren't being taken advantage of at the store, or by the plumber, or by the car salesman. Would you rather pay the $23 you expected, or the $46 you were accidentally charged by the salesman? Without math, calculating this error would be impossible. We participate in these tasks all the time, but we might not think of them as a direct application of math until we stop and reflect.
In my classroom, I hope to spend a lot of time discussing the fact that math is a tool that we can use to understand the world around us. Math isn't just a set of procedures you should memorize to move on to the next course, math is a set of strategies that can help us make brilliant findings and invent amazing technology. Without math, you wouldn't have the cell phone you use so often, or the laptop you play on instead of doing your homework, or the medicine that you take when you get sick. Without math, we would know very little about the world around us. And perhaps educators hesitate to have these discussions, "because what if the students ask a question that I can't answer?" I have definitely thought of this scenario and fear that my students will lose respect for me. They will wonder how I can expect them to learn the material if I can't even answer their questions. I think that it's okay for teachers to not know the answer sometimes. Especially when trying to help the students relate the material to the real world. I also think that an appropriate technique for handling the situation would be to take a little time to help the students find the answer. Use the opportunity as a learning experience for both myself and my students, since "the learning cycle is about life itself" (Zull, p. 48).
Interesting article on why we learn math (other cool resources linked at the bottom of the article)...
Why Do We Learn Math?
Yes! That connection to life is important isn't it? It seems to hit on emotion too. That connection to self and memory that we have already discussed in Zadina. So important to show these real world connection. I recently saw an inspirational video about a math teacher. Here is the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/09/376596585/the-teacher-who-believes-math-equals-love?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150309
ReplyDeleteI love that the math article discussed incorporates the importance of math vocabulary. I believe that students would have less anxiety if they are more comfortable with the information being presented to them. By incorporating math vocabulary into everyday discussions, or lessons, students may be more secure in their math endeavors.
ReplyDeleteGood point Ashley! There are so many reason for interdisciplinary approaches aren't there? As we are learning more about the brain and really think about how we approach the world in our everyday life- it just makes sense.
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