Skip to main content

What to do About Math Anxiety

What can cause math anxiety among students?
  1. Research shows an imposing authority figure, the risk of public embarrassment, and time deadlines (e.g. the pressure of timed tests) often cause math anxiety and unproductive tension among students.
  2. Students may not see relevance for knowing mathematics in their lives.
  3. Some teachers who do not understand much about math impose fear on students to prevent them from asking questions which might expose the teacher's ignorance.
  4. Math is often related with frustration --- students make negative associations with numbers from seeing adults with unpaid bills, unforeseen debts, overdrawn checkbooks, or other money experiences.
What can be done to reduce math anxiety?
  1. Design classrooms to make students feel more successful. Students need a high level of success or a level of failure that they can tolerate. Incorrect responses must be handled in a positive way to encourage student participation and enhance student confidence.
  2. Students learn best when they are actively engaged (Spikell, 1993).  Students have different learning styles, so lessons must be presented in a variety of ways.
  3. Math must be relevant to students’ everyday lives!  To learn math, students must be engaged in exploring, conjecturing, and thinking rather than only memorizing rules and procedures.
  4. Adults need to show students how numbers are used succesfully in positive ways, such as in cooking, in sports, in music, in problem solving, home repairs, in hobbies, in investments and in savings accounts, etc.
  5. Teachers who actually understand what they are teaching tend to encourage questions from the students. Teachers must feel confident in the math being taught, and model good behavior when making mistakes, by showing a sense of humor, in showing enthusiasm, and by using real-world projects that engage student enjoyment of mathematics.
  6. Explore projects through cooperative groups to provide students with a chance to exchange ideas, to ask questions freely, to explain to one another, to clarify ideas in meaningful ways, to reexamine new approaches, and to express feelings about their learning.
Jeanne Lazzarini, RAFT Master Teacher and Activity Developer

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science fairs: Nurturing the 21st century thinker

3D Tessellation model A bespectacled 6th grader enthusiastically explains ‘efficiency of 3D space tessellations’ with myriad equations and handmade tessellation patterns to address the needs of the packaging, storing, shipping and construction industry. Another middle school student, was inspired by his little brother’s telescope and built a simple vacuum chamber using a PVC pipe with a microphone and a speaker on both ends to find out how sound travels on Mars! This 8th grader from Granada Islamic School used an oscilloscope his mother found at an auction to measure the sounds. “I poke around and find junk to build my projects. It’s fun.” Science projects today have become fun for many students as they use more hands on activities to experiment and understand concepts. These two middle school students were among 996 participants at the recent Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship , where RAFT was one of the special judges. Moenes Iskarous, President, S
18 comments
Read more

Why I Chose a Career in Education

There are many moments where I am reminded why I chose a career in education. These moments arise when I am engaged in conversation with other teachers, conducting professional development workshops, developing new lessons, or simply reading about changes and latest developments in the field. Education is a dynamic field, and it has provided me with many opportunities to positively impact the lives of young learners as well as provide inspiration and support to new teachers. One such occasion occurred in mid-April when I was invited by Dr. Rosalinda Quintanar to conduct a presentation to students in a class entitled Meeting the Needs of Second-Language Learners (EDTE 162), a course within San Jose State University’s Teacher Education Department and a credential requirement. The class consisted of approximately 30 credential candidates, and its primary focus is applying theory and practical classroom techniques for providing equitable access to content for English language learners.
Post a Comment
Read more

Thank Goodness for Moms!

Mother’s Day is a great time to recognize one of the most important educators in a student’s life—Mom! I’m so grateful for my own mother (now 91 years old) and all that she’s done for me over the years! She’s the one who gave me the courage to go to college (I’m the first in my family)! Though a mom myself and now a Yiayia (Greek for “grandma”), I often think about the lessons I learned from my mother and her generous love for family and friends. I say it’s truly fitting to celebrate all mothers! Throughout the world, people celebrate Mother’s Day on different days and in various forms. This year in the United States we honor mothers on Sunday, May 13 th . So just how did Mother’s Day begin? The American version of this holiday was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Later on, Anna denounced the commercialization of Mother’s Day and spent a good portion of her later life trying to get it revoked, but it has stayed. Today we cont
1 comment
Read more