You know what is a fun email to get during your summer break? Well the answer isn't a refresher mathematics quiz! Oh, the horror a math quiz based on my program stream and to make matters worse I had to pay money to put myself through this inevitable suffering!
"MOM! WHERE IS MY GOOD CALCULATOR" is one of the first things I yelled once I received this email from Brock University. I hate doing tests and I hate doing online tests even more. Going into this quiz I was worried sick that I would do poorly. How much do I remember from grade 4 to grade 10 math? Well Daniel-from-the-past, 78% worth is the answer to that question. Here is the thing I had against this math quiz- if it was done in person how many Teacher Candidates, including me, would score higher due to educator giving part marks to the process of getting there? Maybe, the fact that I put one extra decimal point that I was not supposed to would not have lost me the marks if I had written the test in person, and had an actual person had marked it.
I read an article just before the first week of classes around the current issues of curriculum change. A point made about the math changes was that a certain percentage of entry teacher candidates were not able to meet a passing grade on their math test. How accurate is this statement? With no data provided it is hard to tell. EQAO scores were recently posted and they are not looking too good. However, taking quizzes like the ones us Brock University Teacher Candidates had to take or even EQAOs aren't the end all be all on how well we will perform. Math is an extremely hard subject to learn and to teach. Educators have many ways of teaching and evaluating math.
With the introduction of concepts like growth mindset and how it differs from a fixed mindset. Feeling that you are either a math person or not a math person is a fixed mindset. The people that feel like they can grow and keep learning has a growth mindset. I’ll attach a video to illustrate the differences between both mindsets.
There will be educators and students that believe in fixed mindset and others that believe in growth mindset. As educators, it is our job to tap into our student’s potential in each subject. Failure is the best teacher out there, and we must show our students that failing or making mistakes isn’t going to be the end of their learning experience. Currently, math is in a state where there is only one answer- 4+4=8. The new thing in education is to show students there are many different and unique ways to get to the answer; it is now the process that matters! Is that the right way of teaching math? Who knows! Learning is done through many different ways.
"MOM! WHERE IS MY GOOD CALCULATOR" is one of the first things I yelled once I received this email from Brock University. I hate doing tests and I hate doing online tests even more. Going into this quiz I was worried sick that I would do poorly. How much do I remember from grade 4 to grade 10 math? Well Daniel-from-the-past, 78% worth is the answer to that question. Here is the thing I had against this math quiz- if it was done in person how many Teacher Candidates, including me, would score higher due to educator giving part marks to the process of getting there? Maybe, the fact that I put one extra decimal point that I was not supposed to would not have lost me the marks if I had written the test in person, and had an actual person had marked it.
I read an article just before the first week of classes around the current issues of curriculum change. A point made about the math changes was that a certain percentage of entry teacher candidates were not able to meet a passing grade on their math test. How accurate is this statement? With no data provided it is hard to tell. EQAO scores were recently posted and they are not looking too good. However, taking quizzes like the ones us Brock University Teacher Candidates had to take or even EQAOs aren't the end all be all on how well we will perform. Math is an extremely hard subject to learn and to teach. Educators have many ways of teaching and evaluating math.
With the introduction of concepts like growth mindset and how it differs from a fixed mindset. Feeling that you are either a math person or not a math person is a fixed mindset. The people that feel like they can grow and keep learning has a growth mindset. I’ll attach a video to illustrate the differences between both mindsets.
There will be educators and students that believe in fixed mindset and others that believe in growth mindset. As educators, it is our job to tap into our student’s potential in each subject. Failure is the best teacher out there, and we must show our students that failing or making mistakes isn’t going to be the end of their learning experience. Currently, math is in a state where there is only one answer- 4+4=8. The new thing in education is to show students there are many different and unique ways to get to the answer; it is now the process that matters! Is that the right way of teaching math? Who knows! Learning is done through many different ways.
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