Math Strategies

Math, I think it is a subject where you either loved it or hate it. Most of the time you will probably meet people that hate math. I fall right in the middle I hate basic math but love advance math. Don't even try to understand that. Anyways, the following blog I list a few strategies for that will help you better teach your students math and hopeful they will be a person who will love it because you made it fun.

Space it out: I receive this strategies from this website: http://deafed.department.tcnj.edu/math/space.html. I totally agree. It talks about to space out math practice a few times a day in short breaks instead of once a day for hours at a time. I mean I know I get burnt out if I work on something for a long time, especially if it is not fun and motivating. So, why as teachers do we expect our students to do the same thing. It doesn't make sense. Another thing is talks about is to teach the communicative property together. That mean when you are teaching the kids that 4 +5= 9 also teach that 5+4=9 at the same time. Especially with children who have any learning disabilities or our students who are deaf that can be so concrete. This helps them to learn two equations at the same time instead of learning one and then months later seeing the same problem reversed. They might not know how to solve it then. Last thing the website states is to teach in chunks before moving on. Have the students learn one thing till mastery then move on. How many of us been in class and it just seems like the class in moving in lightening speed and we can only understand bits and pieces of it? Sure as adults you can probably pull it in later because you have that ability to think abstractly and fill in the chunks but a child who hasn't learn that strategies might not ever catch up because it is going at lightening speed for them.

Make Math Meaningful: I think it is the most important strategy for math. I also got this strategy from http://deafed.department.tcnj.edu/math/meaningfulmath.html It basically talks about how as teachers we need to relate what we teach to our students. Our students wont retain the instructions if we don't relate it to them. Tell them why they need to know this. I remember growing up, I will never use math in my everyday life. Which is so not true, I love to bake and that is all about math if I double a recipe or cut it half. I remember baking with my mom and my mom showing me that this is math put to use. Then it finally connected. We use math everyday when it comes to money. Why not teach our kids with math using fake money so they can learn a hard concept and related it to their everyday life buy making them buy something with their money at the end of the week. Another point this website makes is have the student use the various math tools like a calculator, ruler, or yard sticks because thats what we are going to those tools in the real world too. As adults we aren't expected to multiply 5693 ft by 3284 ft in our head!! Why should we expect our kids to do that same thing. Lastly this websites stresses that we need to have math involve in another subjects; read a book where the main character is trying to add or subtract in the story. For example: in my student teaching I did my unit on Easter and the Easter bunny wanted to share his eggs. So we started with 5 eggs and then we subtracted an egg for every person he gave it away too.

Use more than one way to teach: We all learn differently: some of us are auditory learners, some are visual learner, some are kinetic learners and some are all three. We tend to soak in the information better when it is presented in the way we learn. I received this strategies from http://www.ttaconline.org/staff/sol/sci_deaf.htm. It basically says to present math in more than one way for our children. Present in a way that it touches on all the ways a person can learn so the information can be accessed to all the students. This means that you might use varies manipulative one week and then take about it what happened the next week and the lastly use a visual on the smart board or an over head. Be flexible and change up the way you teach.

Word problems come to life: I know that word problems can be a trick to a lot of people. They can be wordy and have a lot of unnecessary numbers that are designed to throw us off. So, what do we do. Well, this website http://www.ttaconline.org/staff/sol/sci_deaf.htm suggest that teachers should introduce these nasty word problems using informal math vocabulary and then have the student act out what it is saying. This way the children are able to get up and intact what is happening. Then have the students translate what happened into a math sentence in their own words. You also can use various drawing, pictures, anything that visually shows what is happening.

In your own words: My Last strategy actually comes from an article on this website: http://www.cirtl.net/node/5503 and it states to have the children explain the math problems to each other whether it is in English or in ASL. This way the children will be able to put what they have learned in their own words and as a teacher you can see what concepts they know and what concepts they don't know and spend more time on those concepts.