Teaching mathematics and making the students really love mathematical thinking is what I have been doing all of my career. It really doesn 't matter for me to whom or what part of mathematics I am teaching as long as it is new for the audience, and it helps them to think analytically. I have found that as a math teacher it is important to be prepared for the class, introduce the subjects very carefully, teach them the problem solving ability, keep students involved, and keep students motivated.
I have seen some teachers of mine that actually taught without any notes or preparation. I am not one of them. Throughout years, I have learned that preparing a lecture note is very essential part of teaching. When I prepare lectures, even for the
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This helps me see exactly what have to be taught, and prepare better examples for the class. It also helps me for my timing because as I prepare my notes, I try to teach the subject to myself in a speed that I teach to my students. In addition, I try to empathize with my students, and try to ask questions to myself during the preparations. With that feedback to myself, I optimize my notes and try to answer that question in the lecture even though it has not been asked me yet. Additionally, when we introduce a new subject to students, I believe that we should take the first few baby steps very slowly and carefully. Every single step must be explained in details. Deep understanding of the notions and definitions of mathematical expressions is very critical to be comfortable with mathematics, and be able to attack problems in mathematics. One of the most common problems I encountered throughout my teaching career is that students haven 't been taught the importance of the building blocks of some …show more content…
Sometimes the course can be just a requirement on a student 's check list. This have been a huge experience of mine at Indiana University while teaching calculus or finite mathematics course to students form all different backgrounds such as chemistry, biology, business and even medicine. I strongly believe that all majors, and specially the ones I mentioned above, should have some knowledge of mathematics. For that purpose, I choose my examples from different backgrounds to get the attention of the students form that major. And it works. They see how math can be applied in their own field even if they didn 't expect so. For example, I give examples of economy where the use technology matrices or I give a differential equation that describes the growth of cells. Of course, these examples really depend on the nature of the course. Moreover, I tend to relate everyday hot topics to mathematics in class if there is a relation. For example, in a probability class, I can give an example of all talking and understanding robots of smartphones. Most of the smartphones today have some robots in them (e.g. Siri at Iphone). All these robots are using machine learning technics that involves a lot of probability calculations. This kind of specific examples get their attention to the subject, and get them ready to digest the new material they are about to
As a tutor, I found that it was important when starting with a new student to find out where his/her discomfort with math began. Often, this meant going back several years in their education to explain important basic concepts. For some students, fractions and decimals were the point at which math stopped making sense. For many others, it was the introduction of letters to represent numbers in algebra. Some students found that identifying their weaknesses was an embarrassing process. I explained to them that it was not their fault. Everyone comes to understand new concepts in math in a slightly different way, and the problem was that no teacher had taken the time to explain their "problem area" in a way which would make sense to them. Since math was a system, once they missed out on that one building block, it was not surprising that the rest of it did not make sense.
The key aspect of teaching is engaging the students. I can testify that I learn best when the teacher is involving me, as well as others, in the assignment. Making the material personal is a useful skill and helps the students learn at a faster rate.
As the instructor in my classroom, I am responsible for making sure that my students reach the highest possible level of understanding in the subject area that I teach.
In order to be an effective teacher there needs to be an understanding that we all learn differently, this means that no single teaching strategy is effective for all students/learners all the time. This makes teaching a complex process because you need to understand and meet the requirements of all of your learners. Students learn best when they aren’t asked to simply memorise information but when they form their own understandings of what is being taught. When a student has successfully learnt a new idea they are able to then intergrate this information with their previously learnt information and make sense of it. To be an effective teacher you need to work jointly with students to asses where they are at, be able to give feedback on how the student is going and ensure that they are understanding the lesson (Killen, 2013) According to Lovat and Smith (2003) students learning must result in a change in a student’s understanding of the information being taught. In order to show understanding they must be able to share this information with others and want to learn more (Killen, 2013). In order to have a deeper understanding of what is being taught they need to be aware of the relationship that exists between what they knew previously and the new information that is being learned (Killen, 2013).. Students need to be given goals that they can achieve in order to feel a sense of mastery over their own learning, this gives students motivation that they are able to complete tasks and to keep going.
Step one, to succeed in college is taking good notes. This can help students organize their study time more effectively. Because we all have experienced the, last minute studying technique. That’s when the notes come to play. Instead of going through chapters
Demonstrating knowledge of content and pedagogy is important and must be embedded in planning, because in order to be a great teacher you need to know what you are teaching and the best way to teach it to your students. If an instructor does not possess a deep knowledge of what they are teaching it will be difficult to successfully engage students in discussion, promote questioning, and answer their questions. Teachers with a strong knowledge of the content they are teaching are able to present new information by linking it to previous information, address misconceptions, and plan activities and exercises to successfully engage students. They also understand that not all students learn the same way and have different pedagogical techniques planned.
Mathematics teachers teach their students a wide range of content strands – geometry, algebra, statistics, and trigonometry – while also teaching their students mathematical skills – logical thinking, formal process, numerical reasoning, and problem solving. In teaching my students, I need to aspire to Skemp’s (1976) description of a “relational understanding” of mathematics (p. 4). Skemp describes two types of understanding: relational understanding and instrumental understanding. In an instrumental understanding, students know how to follow steps and sequential procedures without a true understanding of the mathematical reasons for the processe...
As with every academic subject, there are a variety of strategies for teaching mathematics to school-aged students. Some strategies seem to be better than others, especially when tackling certain topics. There is the direct instruction approach where students are given the exact tools and formulas they need to solve a problem, sometimes without a clear explanation as to why. The student is told to do certain steps in a certain order and in turn expects to do them as such at all times. This leaves little room for solving varying types of problems. It can also lead to misconceptions and students may not gain the full understanding that their teachers want them to have. So how can mathematics teachers get their students to better understand the concepts that are being taught?
Many students are visual learners. By this, they need to see the information in front of them. Many teachers set up a PowerPoint on a projector and have students take notes. Yes, this is a good learning concept as we have to
Furthermore, teachers need proper training and the preparation because if a teacher knows the material very well and gives the students a well-written lesson plan, then the students could know about what is being taught to them. For example, the students could notice about what their main focus is on the subject. Furthermore, when a teacher hands out a handout; then it gets very easy to follow during instructional time in the classroom. Therefore, that is when knowledge of learning and
My basic principle is preparing my students to face different challenges in life, particularly if they choose to contribute to lead the community where they live. For various reasons, students take my class. Often, the course is required for their major or for a job application, e.g. for those who are future high school teachers. Others take it because they are interested in some topics, e.g. students interested in world politics enroll in international relations course. Regardless of their motivation, my objective is to ensure that students acquire knowledge and set of skills that prepare them to face various challenges in their occupation.
... to interchange ideas and clarify doubts or issues I have. I have to contain myself for doing the most of the speaking in some of the classes, overcome laziness to analyze how well or bad an activity or class turned out and think of better ways to do things when they did not work as I thought they will . To conclude I am aware that the only responsible of my learning is me. “Teacher training or education is something that can be managed by others; Teacher development is something that can be done only by and for oneself” Wallace, 1991.
My personal philosophy on teaching is to inspire my students to think and to be objective thinkers. Like life, classrooms are filled with incidents on a daily basis. It 's interesting, as an active participant, to actually experience these moments shared between teachers and students as relationships are built mostly based on personality. As professionals, it 's expected that emotions take the back seat in decision making, but humans think with their heart a lot. A teacher in my estimation is one of the most human
Education should be a part of everyone's life. A good education offers something for everyone, whether it be on the simple level or a more complex one. Education should provide provide an opportunity for students to develop a strong sense of creativity, a high self esteem, and a life long respect for learning. Education should help students establish a strong sense of confidence in themselves. A teacher will be one factor that helps a student learn and progress along their way through life. Teachers combine their own ideas with other people's to be able to give a good education to their students.
Coming into the teaching profession not knowing a lot, I was able to use previous experience from previous teachers to understand how important it is to understand whether or not students really understand the subject being taught. Having a passion to teacher also improves how much work teachers have to put into to make sure students understand. Growing up, I had the opportunity to experience what it was like to have a teacher was passionate about mathematics. This particular opportunity showed me how much effect he was able to put on his students performance, but most importantly how much effort he had to put into things to see a change in his students work.