Greatest Learning

"What was your greatest 'learning' this semester with regard to teaching children mathematics? How has your thinking shifted?"

      My greatest learning this semester with regards to teaching children mathematics was that mathematics is not just simple right or wrong  answers anymore. I learned that teaching mathematics is about getting the students to learn and be able to problem solve using what they know and also by making mistakes they learn. I really believe that students should defiantly get the chance to learn from their mistakes because students can understand more of where they went wrong in an answer by going through it with a teacher instead of just being told they are wrong all together and given the right answer, I find that the student will never learn from that.
I also learned fro this semester about teaching mathematics was that there are so many great resources out there for teachers to use to help students who struggle with math, and I feel that teachers can easily make learning math fun for students instead of being so boring by just reading from a text book. I have learned from doing our math fair and peer teaching that if an activity can be fun and informative students will most likely enjoy the activity and learn a lot more from then just being told what to do from a book.

      My thinking has shifted a lot this semester as it deals with teaching children mathematics by the fact that I have always had a mental block when it came to math, I was never good at it and my teachers were not very helpful. But after this course our instructor has shown us that math can be fun to learn and also that it is a life long process that can be taught no matter how old you are.

This course has made me change my mind drastically as it pertains to mathmatics and how to teach it. At first I was afraid to go out and teach math but after this semester in this course I am actually looking forward to the things I have learned throuoght this course.