Today, I learned all about the art of questioning. As math teachers, we should never give answers or tell students that they're right...they'll shut off their brains. Make students work together to find solutions. Give them the tools they need to problem-solve and check their own work so that they build confidence in math ability.
What else did we explore? Make use of manipulatives whenever possible! We learn every other subject by starting with concrete information and examples and move to abstract thoughts and concepts. Why do we teach math the other way around? So, by using manipulatives as tangible, concrete examples, we can begin to shift math teaching to align with the way the human brain is accustomed to learning.
I'm still wondering about a few theories. If students rely on the use of manipulatives on tests, then how will they solve the problems on standardized tests? How do we build a community that doesn't judge a student because they still need to use manipulatives to solve problems? Also, we can be very "sly" to use tricks like think-pair-share so that students are held accountable for their group members' success, but that still doesn't negate the social issues that middle school students are going through and the feeling that students are at differing abilities if they use different math problem-solving strategies.
No comments:
Post a Comment