During my first year of being a high school math teacher, I’ve learned so much about being a teacher and successful practices in math. Through this year, my idea of teaching math and my knowledge on it has changed and grown a lot. My idea of teaching math involves heavy emphasis on problem solving and utilizing the critical thinking skills required in math class in multiple contexts that will prove to be applicable in life.

Problem-Solving Skills and Addressing Math Anxiety

Problem solving is an essential part of mathematical thinking. It’s what helps enable students to think critically and figure out how to approach problems in a logical and effective way. The biggest way to cultivate this in students is to put all of the thinking on them. The phrase “never say something a student can say” gets kicked around frequently when discussing teaching with other teachers, and it’s a phrase I try to stick by at every step that I can. When a student is able to sit with a problem and think deeply about it while going through all the motions to figure it out, they’re more likely to remember how to solve that kind of problem in the future. Problem solving is a critical life skill even beyond the classroom, and the biggest way many of us learn in life is by trying things on our own and learning for ourselves. By putting the learning and thinking completely in students’ hands, with a little guidance if needed, students are going to learn for themselves better what works and what doesn’t.

Problem solving helps to build on not being anxious in math and scared of getting wrong answers. Many students have this built-up anxiety of being incorrect in math class and being scared of trying things if they aren’t going to be right. I noticed this in a few of my students this year early on. A handful of them would disengage if they weren’t going to be able to get the answer correct immediately. I found this to be a focal point for myself. There was a noticeable improvement in students being willing to be proven wrong. Early on, I’d see a lot of heads down from students who were overwhelmed and frustrated with the concepts in the class. After many conversations and encouragements, they improved greatly in sticking with the work and continuing to give it a genuine try. I’ve also noticed students being proud of their mistakes and growth. I’ve had students ask if they could share their incorrect way of solving a problem on the board because they were proud of how it built their understanding. That was exactly what I want to see in my class. It’s vital to keep stress and anxiety down in students and build confidence to teach math successfully. Putting too much pressure and stock into one problem or one mistake can wreck a student’s confidence and cause them to shut down. Cultivating the safe learning environment has helped to keep students engaged and not giving up, which is essential to teaching math.

Teaching Math in the Real World

Keeping math in a context that connects to students is also essential to keeping students engaged. Math can be so theoretical and hard to envision in our daily lives sometimes. However, if you can find a way to connect it to a relatable and understandable context to students, not only will it make more sense to them as learners, but it will also engage them more and make it fun. I have found that the lessons in fun contexts seem to go the best in terms of understanding. When I ran my transversal lesson built around guitar frets, students seemed to latch onto it very well. When I introduced blueprints and the start of coordinate proofs to the students, they had a ton of fun visualizing the unit and were super engaged. In order to teach math effectively, you have to root it in something that connects to your students to get the most out of their learning.

Building off of putting math into relatable contexts, it’s also important to make the class fun! Students naturally learn better when they’re having fun. With morale up in the classroom, anxiety is down, and students are more comfortable problem solving and getting answers wrong. In addition, having fun with lessons makes my job as a teacher easier. The more I’m into a lesson, the more my students will get into it. I’ve found that early in my geometry takeover, I was having less fun lessons, and the students were dropping in engagement. I decided to adjust and put more effort into having fun lessons, and it seemed to improve the classroom overall a good deal. Having fun as a teacher can only help your students have a positive attitude and grow to enjoy the class, which is essential to teaching math.

Developing Mathematicians Includes Developing Strong Individuals

A new thing I’ve learned through my teaching is that we’re not just developing mathematicians, but we’re developing adults. Classroom management became increasingly more important in teaching math effectively this year. I learned over time that when you build good classroom management, classroom culture improves, and students take the class more seriously and treat it with more respect. I spent a lot of time in the beginning of the year pressing hard on classroom management, and I feel it paid off greatly. Students are in much more a professional and appropriate mindset in class and able to perform better academically. Since mathematical thinking is utilized in our daily lives as adults, getting students in a more adult mindset when using this thinking is key to developing strong problem solvers. This also helps to create strong bonds with students. Some of the toughest students that required the most management work were some of my best relationships, which makes getting through our class significantly easier. Finally, good classroom management allows me to work through lessons. If students aren’t constantly talking and talking over me, the lesson isn’t constantly interrupted, and students are less likely to get distracted.

Strong Understanding of Content

Teaching math is exactly what my job is to do, so it’s imperative that I have a strong grasp on math to adequately teach it. Knowing content well provides an extra boost of confidence in your teaching, and as I’ve gone on in this school year, I’ve realized the importance of confidence when I’m teaching. In the same way that students need it to properly do math, teachers need it to teach most effectively. Content knowledge also allows me to answer questions my students have better. If a student is curious and asks a higher-level question, I’ll be better equipped to answer them successfully. I’ve had situations this year where students get super excited about a topic in class and want to ask a million questions, and by me knowing the content better, I’m better equipped to answer as many of those problems that are thrown at me. A lot of this also ties into knowing my curriculum. Knowing this is imperative to successful math teaching. Understanding your trajectory and where you’re going is huge in figuring out more priority topics and timings on units and helps with implementing backwards design. Curriculum is an essential part to teaching and understanding what is most important for your students.

Learning Should Be Accessible to All

A big thing I believe in for my classroom is making each and every lesson accessible for my students. Not every student is the same, both as individuals and as learners. What works for some students may not work for others, and as a teacher, it is my job to ensure that each student feels supported in their learning. I believe in using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) heavily to break down barriers to learning. Some students may need a little bit more support to get started, while others may need extra challenges in their learning. By employing UDL, I can create lessons that support everyone equally, allowing each student access to whatever supports or challenges they may need. I like to break down barriers by using things like manipulatives, graphic organizers, sentence starters, and other various scaffolds to help make worksheets more approachable.

Click here to watch a video of my teaching philosophy in action!