I came into this course with a love of mathematics. I wasn't afraid of it, it didn't make me uncomfortable, I just didn't have a clue how to teach it. If you asked me now if I feel prepared to walk into a classroom and start teaching math, I'd still probably say no. But that doesn't mean I haven't learned anything about teaching math from this course. I've learned so much I don't even really know where to begin. The distinction, I believe, is that I will simply never feel confident or knowledgeable on those topics until I actually get to try out some stuff in a real classroom with real kids.
I found this diagram months ago, and was saving it specifically for this blog. I think it sums up our experiences with this program so far in general. We're gaining a whole bunch of those little knowledge dots, and now it's time for us to go get some real, meaningful experiences to tie it all together.
Looking back now I can't believe it didn't really occur to me that math can be more than it was when I came up through the school system. The security of having one "right" answer was something I took solace in during my own math classes, but it's so near-sighted of me to not realize that not everyone learns that way and thrives in that environment, and there is indeed room for creativity in mathematics. I realized that while coming up with activity ideas for the math fair and the team-teaching assignment, I naturally gravitated towards problems where there were multiple answers, because it was more exciting! I was looking forward to exploring all the solutions that my classmates came up with, and didn't want to box everyone in with a question with one solution. Math becomes less competitive this way, and problem solving becomes about finding out cool new information, and new ways of thinking. This is something that I hadn't realized about myself and I think it's neat to know that I think about math a little differently now.
Another incidence that impacted my learning this semester was participation in the math fair. I'm so pleased that we actually created the problems and got to try them out firsthand. If we hadn't had that experience, I don't know that I would have realized what a neat concept it really is. I love the idea of science fairs and heritage fairs, and now I have a whole new idea to add to the list. Looking back, mathematics was always the type of subject that was fun to the people who considered themselves competent in it, but was not considered particularly exciting to the rest. The idea of math fairs changed that mentality for me, and I'd love to see it in action with real children!
