MAED 314A Assignment 1 Reflection

Personally, I really like this assignment as I get to hear about other people’s experience with Math. The responses are some as what I would expect but I also found some other opinions to be interesting. In short, it was great to have the whole class report back their findings and to learn from this experience.
As expected, that common theme we have found is that students find that Math ‘boring’. Many of the students don’t seem to be interested in pursuing any fields related to Math. A lot of them feel that Math is just like a tool useful to have for other opportunity in life. I find that to be something we all need to work on as to show our students you can do many great things with Math. You are taking Math not because the school curriculum requires you to do so. Another interesting point is how some students prefer the old-fashioned note and lecture format. Despite that students find Math to be boring they still like how teachers feed them the required curriculum through the traditional method. This raises the question of performance and understanding. What can we do to balance that is definitely not going to be easy. But gladly, some students did say that they like to have brain challenges and puzzles to have ‘fun’ in Math classes. In addition, another common theme is that students like their teachers who can use some humor in the class and who really care about them. Personally, I prefer to have funny teachers as well. I know I will need to work on my humor.
Before I have decided to enroll in the Education program, I have had done my research talking with my former teachers. But it’s definitely a whole different mind-set once I have become a teacher candidate in the program. I am grateful of other teachers’ advice for us. It’s important to be patient and to care sincerely about our students. Student can tell if you care about them or not and thus, you wouldn’t need to worry about not being respected. I also learn that it’s okay to make mistakes and not to stress out if a lesson plan goes wrong. It is not hard to teach the curriculum. But the difficult part is to teach a class of students with different levels of interest, understanding, and learning needs. In short, I find this assignment provides a great insight into becoming a teacher. There is still the challenge in teaching but I feel less intimated by it as it really comes down to how deeply we care for our students.