Greatest Learning Experiences this Semester

With regard to teaching children mathematics, when I reflect back on the greatest 'learning' I have experienced this semester it becomes a toss-up between 'a right and wrong answer in mathematics' and also learning that children can be good at both mathematics and Language arts, it doesn't have to be one or the other. It was a significant learning experience to think about 'why does there have to be a right and wrong answer in mathematics, isn't it right if the person can justify their answer?' When I learned mathematics in Primary/ Elementary I always thought the teacher always knew the right answer and even if someone found another solution to get the same answer, the teacher's solution to the problem was always the 'most correct answer'. I learned mathematics with this mindset and it was difficult to see beyond it, but once I entered this class and thought more deeply about this it made me feel sad because this idea was limiting the way that I learned mathematics as a child for many years. I remember doing questions directly from the text book independently, during class time in Primary/ Elementary and once the questions were complete we were suppose to go to the back of the text book and check our answers to see if they were 'right'. Reflecting back on this experience now, I think about how this instructional time could have been more valuable by the teacher doing questions and interacting with the class rather than, doing the questions, checking our answers and if they were 'wrong', fixing them to make sure we got the same answer as the one in the back of the textbook. I have learned that I want to be a teacher who uses instructional time wisely and uses mathematics to interact with my students to help them understand the concepts. It is important to not think of yourself, as a teacher, as the smartest person in the classroom and believe that you are the only person who knows the 'right' answer. As teachers, we have a lot to learn from our students and if we take the time to let them talk about problems and solutions rather than telling them the answer, it can be valuable for the teacher to find out just how their minds think while problem solving.

The second Think that I am taking away from this course as a valuable learning experience is how children can be good thinkers of mathematics and also great writers of language arts. I was always told that children were either "good at math or good at writing" and because I was a good writer, it was okay that I struggled with mathematics. I guess I never really thought about that until I began this course, because nothing can be further from the truth, I think that being told this was the most damaging thing for me because I felt like if I was good at Language arts then I couldn't succeed in mathematics. This statement was damaging, especially to my confidence because when I felt challenged in mathematics I always though 'it's okay because I can't be good at both'. I was not only told this by teachers but also by my mother, who was also told this as a child. I was told that boys were better with mathematics than girls and that my Dad was good with mathematics and not great with writing, and my mom was the opposite good at wring but struggled with mathematics. I always thought that I was like my mother and I guess I never really thought that I could be good at mathematics because: 1.) I was a good writer and 2.) because I was a girl. I think I always thought the odds were against me and that I could not be good at both so I accepted that. But reflecting on these things now makes me feel sad because maybe if I had better confidence I would have tried harder rather that accepting something so far from the truth. I truly believe that this is where my lack of confidence in mathematics stems from and I just didn't think that I could be skilled in both mathematics and writing.

As a teacher of mathematics for children and with these things in mind I will have a more positive outlook for children who struggle with mathematics. In Boaler's article, the most prominent of the five research results that can transform math learning for me was number five: "Teacher's messages are hugely powerful". If teachers can have such a huge impact on their students, why not make encouraging and uplifting messages that will inspire and give children courage. I will be able to tell my students that I believe in them and that I know that they can do it.  I believe that all children need is for teachers and others to believe in them in order to give them confidence in their work. I believe it is very important to tell students that you believe in them, they look up to their teacher and I think that children value this statement coming from their teacher.

SNAP Math Fair Reflection

I was very excited to see how everyone in the class had presented their problems and how they would implement them to a student. As I pondered about what the class would look like when we had it all set up it reminded me of the way I would prepare for a science fair when I was in Junior High, and I loved the science fair because that is where I could bring my creative ideas out and collaborate them with scientific ideas and experiments. I have never done a Math fair when I was in school but I was so pleased with the way everyone presented their problems and collaborated it with their creative-teacher side! 

I think the main reason I liked doing science fair project was because there was a lot of time and effort put into this one topic and I was so familiar with the project that I created, that it made me feel proud. The same feeling was felt today when I explained our Math problem to the people who visited our display. I felt that I was teaching them how to do something that I had spent a lot of time and effort working with and creating and it felt liberating to teach it to someone who may have never seen the problem before. 

Everyone has a different way of interpreting and explaining something and I think that it one thing in this project that was seen very prominent, it did not matter how the problem was interpreted and  played out, that was the individuality part of the fair, as long as we understood what the problem was asking us to do. I enjoyed Penny's problem with the greedy pigs and I also enjoyed Stacy's Sudoku problem, I actually never tried a Sudoku problem before and I always thought they looked difficult, maybe because they were numbers but I was impressed that I could work on this problem. 

I really loved the math fair and I defiantly think it is something that I would endorse in the school I will work at because math is a very important part of the curriculum. Seriously, why not have a math fair? there are science fairs and heritage fairs, but why not math fairs? This is such a fun and creative way to present math problems to students. If I were to hold a math fair in my classroom I would give my students lots of class time to work on their project because I think most of the time parents do a lot of the work at home for the students so that it can be done and "over with" faster. This is sad because the most beneficial part of a fair is the time and effort put into working out the problems or finding answers to the question or exploring or researching. I really believe children learn a lot through inquiry and there is definitely a reward aspect to solving or understanding something on their own, even if they do not reach the "correct" solution, there is value in their inquiry and the though put into trying to figure out and solve the problem.  

A Look at the K-6 Mathematics Curriculum & Resources

This was a very interesting class because I got a chance to look at the Mathematics curriculum guides, resources, textbooks, and work books of each individual grade level from kindergarten to Grade 6. I really enjoyed the set up of this class where we were in groups and moved from table to table to see the resources for each grade at different tables. In my group we had a chance to discuss the various elements that we saw from each grade level, the things that surprised us, and the things that we were glad to see. personally I was relieved to see that there a lot of resources for a mathematics teacher. I did two curriculum courses and we never actually got to see the resources or text books for any grade level or subject. We were not even told that there was resources for teachers besides the text books. I originally thought that teachers were suppose to make up or find their own activities for the topic and SCOs in the curriculum guide. Therefore seeing all the resources that are on hand for teachers was a relief. It is good to know or have something to refer to if you're stuck, and it is also good to know that teachers do not have to stick strictly to the resources given to them.


The thing that was most surprising was how big of a difference in difficulty there is between kindergarten and grade one and between grade one and grade two. There are books provided for teachers to read to students or for students to read on their own if they are put in the classroom library, but the difficulty in understanding and the amount of text was really surprising to me especially from grade one to grade two. These books have a lot of great mathematical topics in them and would definitely be an asset to any classroom in order to solidify the child's understanding of the concepts. As well, the pictures and examples given are very well done and explained.


I was also surprised when I was looking through the grade 6 text book and teacher resources because many of the problems were very open ended and gives the students the opportunity to explore the solutions. I was surprised that all the problems that I looked at in the grade 6 resources I was able to solve. My worst fear when it comes to teaching Mathematics was having to teach grade 6 math, because I assumed that the problems were very difficult and that I would have trouble explaining and teaching children how to solve and explore the solutions. Being able to sit down and scan through all the resources for grade 6 made teaching grade 6 mathematics not so scary because there are so many resources at hand and today's teachers know that there is a YouTube video, a blog, or a website that can help explain anything. The resources at hand are unimaginable so there's no need to worry.


Looking at these resources for a teacher does not change how I will teach but it definitely gives me a better perspective on how I will prepare to teach. This class was very beneficial for me because I was able to be hands on with the material that I will teach one day and I realized that it's not so scary once you dive into the material and see what was making me feel so scared.

YouTube? No, YouCubed!! An awesome resource for math teachers

Have you ever heard of the website YouCubed? Well, if you will ever have to teach math in a classroom or have to help a child with their math homework, this site will be of great help. YouCubed is a nonprofit organization and is a free resource for K-12 that offers free and low priced resources for everything mathematical. Even the name is appealing for me because if I was going to research how to figure out something on Google, I usually look for the first link that brings me to YouTube if possible so that I can see it explained or demonstrated by someone. It only makes sense to find videos that will help teachers teach math. I think this is a wonderful resource for all teachers, a few of the videos that I have watched so far really stress the importance of getting our students' minds active and thinking, these videos show examples and give suggestions on how we can practice this approach in our own classrooms. Personally I find that videos are more effective to explain things because I am a visual learner and I need to see how problems are solved visually rather than just verbally explained or written in words. This website has a lot of very helpful videos for people who are visual learners, like me and for everyone really. I found this website to be user friendly and easy to navigate through in order to sift through the content to find what you are looking for. While browsing through some of the videos I found one that talked about a six year old boy which really surprised me. this boy came home from school and told his mother that he did not enjoy his math class that day and when she asked why he said:

 "math is too much answer time and not enough learning time." 

This is a very true statement and it was very surprising to me that it came from a six year old child. This statement alone underlines the problem we have with math in our schools today, the problems given are mainly about finding the 'right' answer and making sure it matches the one that everyone else has but less attention is paid to the process the person took to solve the problem. There are many ways to solving a problem and if we all come to the same answer in the end, who's to say which on is the 'right' answer? 

I believe that math should be more about exploring the problems we are given, not to find the correct answer but to find many answers and we must then convince ourselves which one is the correct answer. We learn from our failures and mistakes so that we can do better next time and math should be about taking risks and trying many ways to solve a problem. 

It is important to see the many different ways that your students think in order to solve a particular problem. Number talks are a great way to see how students reach solutions to problems and you could then represent each students solution visually on the board to illustrate how many different ways there are to solve even a conventional problem because everyone's brain works differently. One of the videos talks about how she would start each math class with a number talk and she would always be surprised with the number of different ways that students solved the problem. This is a great idea that I would definitely bring into my own classroom; it is interactive, fun and engaging for students and together we further see and understand how there are many solutions to a problem. 

I remember being very frustrated and overwhelmed during math classes. I always though that I was no good at math and even the thought of it having to teach it to a class scared me to my very core. I am still not a confident person when it comes to math and I think most of this fear and intimidation stems from some very bad experiences with math at a young age. Over the years there have been teachers that have impacted me and helped me feel more confident about teaching math someday but it is helpful to know that there are so many great resources out there, such as this one, to fall back on if I am not feeling confident and need a little help. 

"...Throughout my schooling years, I had enough "bad" experiences with math that I was left feeling stupid and incapable of doing it...

I cannot tell you the relief I know have that I can learn math myself,and I can teach students that they can too..."

Middle School Teacher  

(taken from YouCubed)

I hope that someday I can be a confident math teacher and that I will no longer feel intimidated by mathematics. 

What is Mathematics Anyway?

When I ponder about the question, what is mathematics? a lot of things run thought my mind. Mathematics is a way of thinking; it is using logics and calculations to solve a problem and I cannot imagine our world without mathematics. We use mathematics in our everyday lives to understand and solve problems, when we go to the grocery store we use math to estimate the amount of money the bill will be and by knowing that we can only spent a certain amount we can better manage our money. Mathematics is in the kitchen when we are baking and cooking, to follow a recipe we use measurements to know how much of each ingredient to use. Mathematics is a way of communicating, through money, through time, through measurements, and the list goes on but we learn at a young age that there are set units that represent time or money or distance and so on and that these units are the same for everyone and by using them to represent a certain amount we can more efficiently communicate what something is so that everyone can understand it in the same way. For example, one hour represents sixty minutes and one minute represents sixty seconds and one hour is communicated as the same amount of time to one person as it is to another, therefore by saying "I will be leaving in one hour" the person receiving this message communicates one hour to be the same amount of allotted time as the person who is sending the message. Mathematics can define many things in our world and without mathematics we would be very uncertain and misunderstood because mathematics is a tool to understanding each other.

In search of the definition of mathematics I read many things but did not seek the answer I was in search of, instead I became more confused. Mathematics is something humans have created, just like literacy, it is now essential to our everyday world and we use mathematics without even know that we are doing so. mathematics is a very difficult thing to define but I think mathematics is anything you want it to be, in class we wrote dozens of words in hope to define the ambiguous term: mathematics. One word that stuck with me was that mathematics is an art, this is a very accurate way to think of mathematics for me because I can realte to art. Just as people connect with are differently, the same applies to how people connct with mathematics differently. Everything is art, the way we dress, the designs our footprints make in the snow, the art of cooking, the art of mechanics and I could go on forever, but if mathematics is a form of art than anything goes! We can all interpret its definition and the way we connect with it differently and therefore mathemtics becomes a personal connection and no two people will experience it in the same way.

Why show Sir Ken Robinson's video in a math class?

Sir Ken Robinson's video, 'do schools kill creativity?' was a great video to show in a math class of future educators. First of all he was very humorous while he was talking about this matter and I think it is important to keep humour in things because it keeps the viewers attention throughout. As future teachers this can be interpreted as keeping math fun and creative, because when a teacher loses touch of her fun side and becomes entirely serious it is difficult for students to enjoy math in the same way. The part where he talks about his son being in the nativity scene was particularly intriguing to me because I could relate to his conclusion about the event. The boy did not say the correct line, but instead said 'Frank sent this', his conclusion was that children will take a chance, even if they don't know, they will try. He says that he does not believe that being wrong and being creative is the same thing but that children are not afraid of being wrong and that if you are not prepared to be wrong then you will never come up with anything original. This makes perfect sense as it relates to children learning math because we, as teachers, must encourage students to try and attempt a problem, even if they are wrong, instead of discourage. I had a teacher in Elementary school who made me feel stupid for trying because my method for solving the problem was not correct. Children need guidance and encouragement, discouraging children from trying only destroys their confidence and makes them feel like trying something is a waste of time because their answer might be wrong. Thus, children grow into adults who are frightened of being wrong and I believe we learn from our mistakes even more than we learn from our accomplishments because it makes us go back to where we started, figure out what went wrong the first time and fix it.

I do think that schools are beginning to kill children's creative spirit because teachers look for that one answer to a question or that one correct response to an assignment but they should take more time to analyze and think about what made the child think about the assignment in that way? If the  reasoning is still unclear, the teacher should sit with the student and ask questions about their piece. As teachers we expect students to ask questions when they do not understand a given reading or problem or whatever it may be, but as educators I think it is important for us to ask questions and look deeper into our students work, all children have creativity and we should encourage students to show it in their work.

Mathematics Autobiography (Ed. 3940)

I have trouble remembering specific experiences from math classes in my Primary and Elementary years but I do remember that I did not dislike mathematics during this time. when I think about mathematics classes in these years the experiences that I vaguely remember are the ones where we, as the students, were actively learning by doing. For example, I remember using manipulatives such as 'counters' (which were small coin-sized, clear objects that we used to count and do simple math) and I remember making our own geometric shapes with paper and tape and also learning to count money, where we had plastic and paper money to practice and learn with. Reflecting on these memories being the only few that I remember, it is interesting that they are the ones where the students in the class were learning by doing and actively learning about a topic. This very much relates to my way of learning now as an adult because I am the type of learner who learns by doing, experimenting and creating. I need to be using my hands and my brain at the same time, if a teacher is teaching I need to be making notes and writing and if I am being shown how to use or do something, I need to have it in my hands while the person explains each step. I think there are a large amount of students who learn in this way and I think by getting the students to actively participate in activities rather than listen to the teacher talk about a topic for long periods of time will make the learning experience more memorable. My mathematics classroom from K-6 was not a very interactive one but I really believe that students should be active while learning, they should be given a variety of different opportunities to understand a concept.

My very worst memory of math as a young student is from when I was in grade four. Our class was learning about multiplication and division and I was really having trouble memorizing the multiplication tables and my teacher had pointed me out to answer a question on the board. I was so nervous and so scared that I would get the answer wrong and on top of these feelings I had to stand in front of my class and solve this problem on the board. when I got to the front of the class the teacher handed me the chalk and told me to answer the problem, I stood there and my mind was blank, I did not know the answer and I felt very embarrassed. The teacher looked at me after a minute of silence and said "well are you going to solve the problem or are you stupid?" I then felt even more embarrassed that I did not know the answer so I went back to my seat and sat with my face touching my desk and my arms folded around my face so that no one could see that I was crying. I remember leaving school that day and not ever wanting to come back. I felt like I was a complete failure and that I would never be able to do math because I was stupid. After that year I became a little more confident with mathematics because I had had some very positive and encouraging math teacher to help me along he way. I am still nervous when it comes to math and if I am ever put on the spot to answer a math question my brain goes completely blank and it is very difficult to feel confident about math.

For assessment in Elementary school, I remember doing math tests and having to study a unit or topic and write a test on it. I remember for some seat work we were paired with a buddy and we would work together as a team to complete a worksheet or an assigned set of questions from the textbook. Writing tests for math in grade 4, 5 and 6 then prepared us for junior and senior high where much of the assessment is exams. I had a wonderful math teacher in grade 10, 11 and 12, Mr. J. Ping. He was the most caring and patient teacher I have ever had. He was very concerned about a student's success in his class and he would do anything to help us better understand a topic. I would often stay after school with him and he would tutor me with topics I was not understanding. This was very helpful and I really loved how much he cared about me understanding a topic and how much effort he would put into helping me understand better.

I then went on to complete mathematics 1090 and mathematics 1051 in University. I do not consider mathematics to be one of my strong points but I truly believe that my high school math teacher helped build my confidence in math and helped me learn that its okay if I did not understand something. He taught me that teachers are there to help students understand and I should not be afraid to admit that I do not understand something, their job is to help students understand.