Yeni's EDCP 342 Blog

1. Something that really reached me as a math learner When I realized that math wasn't only about numbers, I was both excited and confused. 2. Frustrations with math learning When I first went to a local school in Kazakstan, I couldn't really speak Russian. I was having a hard time understanding what teachers were saying, and the class was going over power of 10. I struggled so much through this topic, and on the test I got the worst mark ever in my elementary school life. 3. A math teacher you want to emulate - a role model In grade 11 I had a math teacher whose lectures weren't really interesting, but the teacher seemed very passionate about his job. He cared about his students' learning and was always willing to help. 4. A math teacher whose ways you want to avoid My math teacher in grade 5 always compared me with those students who didn't do well in math. Her approach to students seemed very inappropriate.

The advantages of instrumental understanding Skemp lists in this article can be viewed as study strategies for students who want to have easier grades and see apparent progress. This type of learning could help students who have had serious problems with mathematics and just need the grades to pass a course. Although my teaching experience is very limited, I have witnessed quite a few students who say they hate mathematics, and some of those students even think that they would not need mathematics in the real world. They might be right in some way, but if they were taught to learn relationally rather than instrumentally, their mathematical approaches towards the world might have been very different. With instrumental mathematics taught, students might think they understand, but they are not able to apply those concepts they learned to different situations. Lack of this skill leads to memory work and eventually boring classes. In boring classes students tend to strive for ...