Week 3 Blog Post

Hello Everyone and Welcome back to my week 3 blog!!

This week’s online module focused mainly on the importance of making mistakes in math class and how mistakes allow students to improve and deepen their mathematical understanding. As I’ve already stated in my previous blog post I believe that it essential for us as educators to create an environment in our classroom that encourages students to take academic risks. By creating this environment, students will be more likely to take chances, makes mistakes, discuss their mistakes and thereby gain a deeper understanding of the mathematical concepts they are learning. So exactly how does one create a safe learning environment that encourages students to make mistakes and to see mistakes as a good thing? I believe it is a combination of classroom management, modeling, asking the right type of math questions, and the educator’s attitude. I also came across and interesting website that offers a lesson to help educators guide their students to this kind of thinking.

Click HERE for further information about this lesson .

In terms of asking the right type of questions, there are many ways to making math more accessible and more about the process than the answer. I mentioned the ‘math congress’ approach in my previous post; this week we discussed ‘Low Floor High Ceiling’ activities. These types of activities have open-ended questions and provide an opportunity for all students to access the learning material at their own level; they can also be extended however to higher levels. LFHC activities are great for inquiry-based learning and for a focus on a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematical process, which was a big part of my blog last week.  Click on the below link to find out more about these kinds of activities.

One final point I would like to reflect on is a piece of advice given to us in the classroom. We were told to ‘Be less Helpful’ with our students. Though, at first, this may seem not only counter-intuitive but also counter-productive to generating a health growth mindset in our students; I do agree with it. I believe that, by strategically directing students to get help from peers or to reflect further on their own, you are not only empowering your students to each other but you are also fostering in them the confidence to take their learning into their own hands. Being overly helpful with students can only be a hindrance in their learning, as it will likely prevent them from making the mistakes they need for the brain to grow. By allowing them to ‘figure it out’ you are giving them the opportunity to try different things, to make mistakes and even to be more confident problem-solving and sharing the discussing wrong answers with their peers.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Nadine Zahabi