How do you feel about Teaching Fractions?
Posted: Monday, December 12, 2005
by Brian Stocker
http://www.test-preparation.ca
As we all know, attitude is key to most things that we do,
and teaching fractions is no excep
teach something, it is important to sort out your own
experiences first.
What do you think about math? When you were in school, do
you hate math? Find it boring and useless? Does math make
sense to you?
The answers to these questions may just be determining how
effective a teacher you are.
Good teachers and effective teachers love the subject they
are teaching, or at least aren't totally negative about it.
If a teacher feels negatively toward math, children will
pick up on subtle clues and they too will feel negatively
towards math. Two major factors in the student's achievement
in math are the way it is taught and the way the teachers
feel about math.
Stay positive, and if possible, enthusiastic about math. If
this is difficult, you may want to look at your past
experiences, feelings and beliefs and work on changing them.
This is an ongoing process. In the meantime, look at math
examples that you can be enthusiastic about. Concrete, daily
life examples are always valuable. Think of practice
examples of using fractions in the kitchen, or around the
house. Any example like this is good! Start off using
examples that are concrete and that you can feel
enthusiastic about, and you will pass on your enthusiasm,
and avoid passing on negativity to your students.
Treat your math class just like other subject, not as a
difficult and un-learnable subject. The more positive you can
be, and the more 'real' you can make learning math -- the
more students will learn and retain what they learn.
Brian Stocker is a psychologist and former teacher. He has written
widely on teaching and teachers. Visit his math site at
Math Lessons for elementary math lesson plans,
math worksheets, fractions games and more!
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)You're so right.I"m endorsed to teach middle school language arts, social science, and general science. And then...I had to teach a math class a few years ago. Although, I dreaded it most days, I tried to just take it one day at a time. I honestly think I learned just as much (or even more) than the kids did. :-)
While it wasn't as bad as I thought, I don't think I'll be volunteering to teach any more math in the future. I know my kids had fun though - and they loved that I was honest about something if I didn't quite remember how to do it. We worked through it together. ;-)
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