Math Anxiety Linked to Physical Pain?

From November 2 to November 8, three stories in Time Magazine, The Atlantic, and even Wired Magazine have discussed recent findings that math anxiety can activate pain areas in our brain.

But that is changing for students in several schools I’d like to highlight. First up is the new Education Achievement Authority (EAA) district in Detroit, Michigan.

The EAA has turned the tables on teaching, with the letters “SCL” (standing for “student-centered learning”) ringing out of the mouths of principals and students across each of the fifteen schools. I just flew back from a visit to the EAA where School Improvement Network caught on camera the trials, difficulties and successes of this new education model.

Where math is concerned, I saw a class of 12-year-old kids listen carefully to their teacher when she turned down the radio for a few moments of brief instruction about changing centers. The kids quickly and quietly changed their activities and got straight to work. They weren’t mindless automatons; they were engaged. They wanted to switch and learn math skills in several different ways. When the kids switched, the radio went back on, and the children kept learning.

This teacher (soon to be highlighted in an upcoming PD 360 video) had excellent classroom management, to be sure. But that’s not her secret to a great classroom atmosphere in an area that has had chronically terrible behavior for decades. Her secret is that she and the EAA are providing students with methods to teach themselves, with significant support from a teacher, and thereby eliminate the anxiety over math or school in general.

The second example is from South Jordan, Utah.

Kalina Potts is a teacher who is teaching multistep word problems in her math class (you can watch the video for free here). Potts is teaching her lesson by using Common Core Math Standards 4.OA.3 and MP.1, 3, & 4.

“I think the hardest part is just figuring out what you’re supposed to do,” says Stephen, a student in Potts’s class. “The math problems itself like division, multiplication, and everything like that isn’t so hard. It’s just figuring out which one you’re supposed to do with which numbers and everything like that.”

In other words, Stephen and his classmates aren’t just following steps—they are learning how to learn. So rather than becoming anxious about whether or not they done the problem “right,” the students are learning for themselves how to solve a problem and why they choose to solve it that way.

It is my estimation that the fear we experience when confront with math problems is that we are faced with real-world issues and no homework instructions for how to accomplish them. But in both the EAA and in Ms. Potts’s class, students aren’t just learning how to follow directions; they are learning how to own their own experience with math.

What are some of your favorite methods for teaching math? How are math tasks going on your classrooms? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

Formative Assessment: The Key to Maximizing Student Potential

A Post on Student Achievement Best Practices

By Elizabeth Williams, Math Teacher

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When I started teaching fresh out of college four years ago, I thought that I would be able to teach my students math using the same methods my teachers used. We were taught the material, did homework every night for practice, and then took a test at the end of every chapter.  My first year of teaching I covered nearly the whole Algebra curriculum using this method. The students did not do well on tests and never did their homework. This method was not working. I thought my goal was to TEACH everything, now I realize that my goal is for the students to LEARN as much as they can. The key to this change in mentality is to use formative assessments, not summative assessments. Formative assessments should give students feedback to reflect on and make goals to improve their knowledge and understanding.

Feedback is a critical component of assessment. I use responders in my lessons so that students get immediate individual feedback whether they are right or wrong. We also have discussions about how someone could have reached an incorrect answer. Personal interaction between the teacher and student is also important for students to understand where they need to improve. Another type of feedback is the teacher’s comments on a test. Questions should not just be right or wrong, students should know where they make a mistake.

Once feedback is given, students need to be taught how to use that feedback to improve. Students should look at each question that was incorrect and assess whether it was a careless error or they didn’t understand. If they didn’t understand they need to ask the teacher or another student to help. Then they should redo the problem. The teacher should give them credit for redoing the problem correctly. Once they have reflected on the reasons for their errors, students need to make specific goals to improve.

Finally, the teacher needs to ask the question:  “Are students ready to move on?” Sometimes the students should be retested after the topics have been taught using different methods. The teacher should make specific goals regarding what to do differently and where the students need to be before the class goes to the next topic.

I don’t cover nearly as much material as I used to, but I feel like my students actually LEARN more.  Both teachers and students need to make reflect on their work and make specific goals to reach their full potential.

Elizabeth Williams, Math Teacher, Midland Trail High School, WV

About the Author: I am in my fourth year teaching math in WV.  I graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics from Davidson College and a M.A. in Teaching from Marshall University.  I love trying new teaching strategies and using technology in the classroom.

Student Achievement Best Practices: How to Help Your Students Reach Their Potential in Mathematics

By Dr. Renu Ahuja, Math Teacher

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I teach mathematics courses to a very diverse group of students in terms of age, grade level, ethnicity, mathematical and reading abilities in an urban high school. Most of the classes are heterogeneous with students from grades 9-12 in the same class. Knowing my students well and gaining their trust is a good way to start. One of my student achievement best practices is to give them diagnostic test in the beginning of the year that assesses the minimum they need to understand the concepts to be taught in the course.

Many of the students are initially diagnosed to be in need of remediation. I plan my curriculum materials and lessons based on students' developmental needs. Making connections, differentiation, presenting the content in logical steps and giving clear directions is the key. I try to involve all students in class participation by giving them equitable opportunity to present their solutions on the board, explain their reasoning to each other and to the class. Thus, mathematical talk is an important part of classroom procedures and instruction in my classes.

Giving mixed review study packets and assessments based on mixed review improves concepts retention and scores on standardized, formal and informal assessments. Designing problems that connect topics from different chapters prepares them for problem solving and recalling previously learned concepts. Preparing lessons that tap students' potentials keeps them engaged with the mathematical tasks. Using a combination of directive and supportive scaffolds during the delivery of lessons keeps the students on track and helps in developing reasoning skills.

Presenting the content in a logical sequence and rearranging the curriculum sequence that takes into account their prior misconceptions helps in building conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in mathematics. Even, the lecture method combined with technology, visuals, and differentiation strategies such as flexible grouping, tiered assignments, adjusted work load helps in improving students' achievement. I try to give my students a broader picture by connecting the topics with their real life and other disciplines.

I have adjusted my instruction from year to year based on the students' needs. In addition to teaching the mathematical content, we have to teach them organization skills, how to use their time effectively, how to use the textbook, how to organize their study space, how to review for exams. All these skills add to the students' achievement. I talk to the students about importance of these skills during coach class and homeroom period.

So, there is no single recipe for students’ success in mathematics, you have to use a combination of student centered and teacher centered pedagogies. I have a passion for teaching and learning of mathematics. I communicate the passion for mathematics to my students every day by being enthusiastic and cheerful. The goal is to help them become better problem solvers and appreciate the beauty of mathematics.

Dr. Renu Ahuja is a mathematics teacher in the Baltimore City Public School System, Maryland.

A Physics Teacher's Formula for Increasing Student Learning

A Post on Student Achievement Best Practices
By Buffy Sexton

A few of my TLN colleagues and I were recently discussing the X PRIZE Foundation and that its next challenge—and prize—will be focused on education. As we brainstormed ideas for challenges and prizes, I couldn’t help but wonder how an external prize can be created when, in reality, our students’ education is the prize. Better yet, growth in their learning is the prize. And even better than that, our students’ ability to increase their own learning is the prize. Now there’s a challenge.

What could that kind of challenge look like? Let me turn up my imagination for a bit. . . .

Okay, physics teacher stepping in here. Let’s say that knowledge gained can only travel in the positive direction (that whole “never forget how to ride a bike” thingy), just like distance traveled. We need a unit of measure, so let’s use grade level, or gl. I will assign knowledge the variable k. Let’s also say that we will use the Greek letter ∆ (delta) to represent the amount of change in k. We can then use this formula for the amount of change in k: ∆k(gl)=kfgl-kigl, where f stands for final and i stands for initial.

Alright, looking good. But we need to know how much time passed for this ∆k. We’ll use ∆t, which just happens to stand for change in time. And, let’s use a school year, or y, as the unit of measure.

Let’s review:

Symbol	Meaning
k	knowledge
∆k	Change in knowledge
gl	The unit of measure for ∆k. (a grade level)
∆t	The time interval used to reach that ∆k. Measured in school years.

We are rollin’ now! So the challenge: at minimum, we want to get students to a ∆k of 1gl/1y. Ah, but we know it has to be student-driven ∆k. So, how do we get them to want to increase their ∆k?

Research has shown (that would just be my nine years of teaching) that while some, if not most, students do want to increase ∆k, not all students seem to care enough to try/stay on task/come to school on a regular basis/____________________. You can fill in the blank with the issue of your choice.

So what are concerned, exhausted, at-their-wits'-end educators to do?

Here are my humble thoughts:

• Embrace the Common Core standards (or, for my state, the Kentucky Core Academic Standards). They let us know what students should know and be able to do at the end of a given grade level. Will the first year of implementation be messy? Yes. Easy? No. There are a million if’s, and’s or but’s out there surrounding the Common Core. Transfer that resistive energy to kinetic energy. For science, the Common Core outlines what good science teachers already do.

• Stop fighting the things that already keep our students on task (albeit tasks they want to do). By this I mean their technology. Smart phones. iPads. Tablets. iPods. Xbox. Wii. We have been so busy trying to make sure students aren’t texting during class that we’re losing the chance to use the same equipment to keep them on task.

• Here’s the scariest one—yes, worse than cell phones in the room! Give, put, place, or throw the responsibility for learning on the student. Yes, I said it. Don’t stand and deliver. Watch and facilitate. Get on the sidelines and coach. Get out of the game and let them play to learn.

Give students appropriate tools, guidelines, and scaffolds. Turn up your imagination for a minute. What could this look like in your classroom? Picture, if you will—Twilight Zone, just go with it—a normal classroom on a normal day like any other. Only the desks aren’t desks. They are round tables. The students aren’t sitting, taking notes from a teacher standing in the front of the room. Some students are taking notes from a real text book. Some are taking notes on iPads. Some are conducting a lab. Some are filming said lab. Some are conducting online simulations of the lab.

Look, there’s a kiddo watching the video of the lesson he missed yesterday. Watch him. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Write. See here? Here’s the teacher. Cruising around the room. Stopping to encourage her. To push him. To question her. To answer his question with a question. Each student has her own learning target. And each student is giving individual evidence of ∆k. How much of an increase in ∆k will students push themselves toward?

This isn’t the Twilight Zone. It’s the new educational landscape: student-driven learning. Will this be messy at first? Probably. Easy? Could be. Let’s see what kind of challenge the students design.

Buffy Sexton teaches science at Meyzeek Middle School in Jefferson County, Kentucky. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and a member of CTQ’s Implementing Common Core Standards team.

Once Upon a Time . . .

In 1956, Peter Stang left his hometown in Hungary to travel to the United States. Why? Because the U.S. represented opportunity—opportunity to achieve anything Stang could imagine. Now, at 69, Peter Stang is receiving the National Medal of Science, the highest honor given to a scientist or engineer by the United States.

Over 50 years ago, and even before that, immigrants came to the U.S. searching for a better life, knowing the freedom to study, learn, and progress was finally possible. Some might argue that the country has lost that reputation or that it has significantly diminished. Although we may not currently be at the top compared to competing nations of the world in math and science, the United States still has an abundance of potential. Peter Stang became a world-renowned chemist (ranked 69th on a list of the world’s top 100 chemists) because he had opportunities. He credits his success to the freedoms and opportunities he has enjoyed in the U.S. “This is the only country in the world that I know of that takes the best of anyone in the world and gives them the opportunity to succeed.”

Can the United States still be the catalyst for great learning and innovation? How?

Learn more about Peter Stang by clicking here.