I was moved by the little Ferit’s story. Isn’t it one of the strategies people use all the time? Usually when we found an efficient way of doing one thing, we tend to stick with it (or at least try to reuse it) when we deal with another situation, especially when the two things have some common ground. As what happened in the story, sometimes it works, but many times it doesn’t. This reminds me of the math teaching. For example, providing several examples and then letting students conquer many homework questions is just one way of teaching mathematics, but it works generally, even though it might not be the best way of teaching and learning. Because this is a tradition and it is how we learned, we are familiar with this style and it is easy to use, but unfortunately, it is often overused in many classrooms. Teachers are no different than little Ferit.
All the studies are interesting and they all point to the same direction and that is, an efficient way of solving math questions involves creativity, flexibility and adaptability. It also applies to the teaching of mathematics. I think the first step is to be flexible. We have to be open-minded and acknowledge that there are different styles and opinions in the field, and our job is to find out which ones suit us the best on a particular topic. Second, we have to learn to adapt the existing material according to our teaching environment. The strategies work for other people in other classes might not be the best for us or might not fit into our classes. Therefore, it is necessary that we take what work for us and make changes. Finally, I think the most difficult part is to be creative because it takes time and effort to create something which might not be guaranteed to be successful. It also means that the teacher has to voluntarily add an extra piece on top of their already heavy workload. All these put together a dedicated math teacher who will turn math into a fun and interesting subject beyond mere strategies.
Thank you so much for this beautiful response Hong! I was also touched by Ferit's story and I thought that the teacher treated the incident like a failure. Ferit finally had success with math and that idea stuck with him, and to me that is pretty wonderful. It reminded me of the importance of having a connection with what you are learning.
ReplyDeleteI also love you connection between Ferit and the teaching of math. I think it so important to realize that their is more than one way of knowing in everything, even in teaching. That is such an important point. I love that the more we delve into methods of problem solving and thinking in mathematics, the more we realize it relates to life outside of math. Math isn't all that abstract after all.
I like your comment "Teachers are no different from little Ferit"! If a lesson plans works, stick with it. Hmm. If using powerpoint works, stick with it. If giving daily quizzes work, stick with it. After being in the education program these few months, the one thing that it's forced me to realise is that teaching requires constant reflection.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed Ferit story, Hong. I like your observation about his teacher as it relates to us now as we think about developing our own styles. Do we want to be like Ferit's teacher and encourage kids to take chances, think relationally and invent new strategies? I hope so.
ReplyDeleteI also like the way you put the flexibility, adaptivity, and creativity in order of difficulty and talked about them from the teachers' perspective.
I agree with you, Hong. Some math teachers try new things in their lessons to motivate their students to be more creative and flexible in solving problems; on the other hand, a majority of math teachers is still using the traditional strategy of teaching mathematics. We want our students to be creative and flexible, but we educators are still stuck with the old fashion way of teaching, just because “it is how we learned, we are familiar with this style and it is easy to use.” This is just nonsense! Before we educate our kids to be more creative and flexible, we are the ones who need to change first.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your response I realise that flexibility, adaptivity and creativity not only lead to efficiency in math but in life. To be more flexible, more adaptive and more creative would be to be a better person and these are qualities we should strive for in all areas of our lives, if they make us better people it makes sense that they'd also make us better mathematicians! I do agree with your closing remark that in order to be more creative work is added to an already heavy load. It is difficult to cope with this, especially as we ourselves were taught traditionally.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true Hong Jiang,that when we learn a method to do something, we just like to use the same method over and over, and don't want to look for other ways out. perhaps, we are so lazy that we don't want to waste time in thinking for another approaches to deal with problems, or we are so overconfident about our previous knowledge, that we are so rigid about our already learned strategies, just in case of little Ferit.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your views regarding the teachers who are using the routine expertise, instead of adaptive expertise while teaching mathematics, as most of the teachers follow the same strategies of teaching. Thus, in order to make our students better problem solver, we as teachers must reconsider our role and try to become an adaptive experts, who must be ready to use different strategies creatively and flexibly.