Monday, January 19, 2009
My Learning Goals
My learning goals for this class are fairly simple but perfect for me. I have never been very good at math which causes me to be nervous about teaching it. In this class, I would like to be given the knowledge and tools to do well and teach math to my students. I want to learn how to be a GOOD math teacher. I know it may seem as though this is a given, but in my experience I never really had math teachers that helped me understand math. I want to know how to help my students really understand math rather than just memorizing how to do it. I want to be able to know when they need help and how to help them. I also would like to be knowledgeable across all grade levels. In the past, our TE classes seem to be very specific to younger or older grades. Since I am not that good at math, I would like to be prepared no matter what grade I end up teaching. Along with math, I would like to continue my education on teaching in general. I always enjoy being exposed to fun activities or new ways to explain something to children. I believe a lot of this can happen in the field placement, but I would like to enhance that exposure in TE 402. I look forward to working with the other students in order to become a well educated math teacher.
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Erin,
ReplyDeleteAs someone who also is not very good at math, I can absolutely relate to all of your questions and concerns. I also agree that throughout our educational process at MSU we have been exposed to very grade specific mathematical curriculum vs. exposure to curriculum across the board. Something that has really helped me cope with this theoretical gap is building on simplistic knowledge and concepts that I understand fully. While this concept seems very broad and general, it is extremely utilitarian across a multitude of classrooms. For example, in class yesterday when our peers were able to take a simplistic multiplication problem and convert it into an algebraic equation, the same thing can be done in reverse; an algebraic equation can be simplified by converting it into a story problem. In most cases I have found that a solution is always able to be reached by reverting to simplistic methods. I hope this helps you in your quest to teach students of all age groups!