Math Philosophy: I first discovered my love for math in the third grade. My mom began homeschooling me in second grade, and quickly realized how much I had convinced myself that I hated math. She spent the entire summer between second and third grade convincing me that I was good in math, and that I loved it. All the convincing must have worked, because math, without a doubt, is my favorite subject and has been ever since the third grade!
One of the best things about being home schooled was my mom was able to tailor her teaching style to my learning style. I am a hands-on learner and we did numerous hands-on activities to teach me math. When it came time for me to learn about money and counting, we played store. I was the cashier and mom was the shopper. I would count how much everything cost, and she would pay me. When she taught me fractions, we would cook a pizza or cut up a candy bar, and divide it into pieces and that is how I learned fractions. We spent hours upon hours doing hands-on activities helping me to learn math. I am a visual learner as well so I needed to see the candy bar and the pizza divided up to actually understand what one- half or three-fourths was. To this day, I sometimes picture a candy bar in my mind when thinking about fractions.
Throughout my homeschooled years and even into high school, my love of math grew exponentially. In eleventh and twelfth grade I had a teacher named Mr. Moland for advanced math and advanced math II. He was an amazing teacher! He taught in such a way that I absorbed it like a sponge. I made a perfect score on almost every test because I loved it so much! I learn by working the problems out over and over, and we did that a lot in class. He never got frustrated with me when I asked questions, and I asked a lot of them! I specifically remember one time freaking out because when I got to school that particular day, I heard a rumor that we had a math test that we were not told about, and we had a substitute. I was absolutely panicked all day! I hadn’t studied, and to do well on a test, even if I know the material, I have to be prepared mentally. I remember getting to 6th hour that day and as the substitute passed out the test, as a class we decided to do the best we could, but write at the top of the test that we were unaware that we had a test that day. We thought that if everyone wrote that, he would let us retake it, but I was still very unsure. That was probably one of the most stressful days I ever had in high school because of one math test, and I love math! I cannot imagine if I didn’t. As it turned out, he graded it, but let us retake it and we were all extremely grateful because the grades hadn’t been so good.
I have a passion for math that I hope I can pass onto my future students. Math is such an important subject, but so many students today hate it because they do not understand it. I truly believe I can have an impact on how my students take to math. I do not expect all of them to love math like I do, but since I have such a passion for it, I feel like I can teach it well enough that they will comprehend it and succeed.
When I become an elementary teacher, I would love to teach fifth or sixth grade math. I get such joy out of math and I feel like I could pass that off onto my students and they would be successful in math! I will teach math with a very hands-on aspect because I truly believe that is the best way to not only learn math, and relate it to real life. I will also tailor my lessons to reach the students who have other learning styles. I think one of the biggest reasons students dislike math so much is because they do not see when they will ever use it, and it is not explained to them in a way they can understand. If I teach them in such a way that they can see how we use math in everyday life, I believe it will relate to them and they will enjoy it and find it useful.
Student work:
A way to get the students interest, and keep it, is to get them learning outside. The students love to be outside! For one particular lesson this semester, we gave the students a prism, and brought them outside to see what the prism projects onto the ground when the light hits it. This was actually a science lesson, but could definitely be incorporated into math by the use of the prism. The students absolutely loved it and were so excited to move the prism and see how it projects a beautiful rainbow onto the ground, piece of paper, or whatever it hits. It was wonderful to see them to excited to learn about something. I will do learning outside of the classroom as much as possible whenever I become a teacher.
Student work:
