During my practicum I am teaching both Grade 7 and 11 math. Since math is traditionally dreaded or considered scary and boring my goal is to make my math classes engaging. As I am just starting out, I am always looking for different strategies and techniques to add to my 'tool kit'. I came across this article that had the following suggestions:
- Don't start with the math: Instead of diving right in and scaring kids off with formulas and numbers, start with a problem or a puzzle that involves math to solve to engage the kids instead of using a problem to solve the math.
- Try to avoid text-only problems: Some students do not necessarily struggle with the math, but it is the language they stumble on. This is especially the case for our ELL (English Language Learners) students. When appropriate, add images, videos or hands-on applications to the math.
- Tie the math to a context students can understand: One thing I always try to implement in my math classes is making the learning relevant to the students. I usually try to do a real world application of the content we are learning but that isn't always easy with certain topics. In those tougher situations even implementing something that students are familiar with or a context they have some background knowledge in, it helps to ensure they are focusing on the math and not having to decipher the vocabulary or context.
- Have students create predictions: When I implement real world examples I will pose the students a question and have them predict the answer before we attempt the math. This helps the students to get thinking about the question and make them more invested in the solution of the problem.
- Use problems where the situation provides feedback: Creating problems that do not require for feedback from the teacher whether it is right helps the students to check for themselves if they are on the right track. So often I find students don't think about their answers in the big picture, if their calculator says the answer it must be right... An example would be, students trying to move from counting how many toothpicks make up a shape to developing a formula to do the same can always go back and count toothpick as a way to run tests on their formulas. The question should create test cases for the student-generated ideas.