My Weekly Report and Reflection 8 (Week 15)

Class 15 was another great one! We worked on factoring which was a great refresher since I haven’t done this type of mathematics in a while. We also gained some resources as future mathematics teachers, which we can use in our classroom in our careers! In fact, I was proud to be the first student in the class who completed the "pop-up" card! Check out the picture below to see my staircase! One thing that I wanted to focus this blog on was the TED Talk that we watched at the beginning of the class.

I love watching TED Talks, and the video we watched this week lived up to my expectations! The beginning of the TED Talk was about how mathematics has to do with patterns, as the speaker defines mathematics as being “about finding patterns (connections, structure, etc.), then representing these patterns with mathematical language.” He also states that math is about doing cool stuff. I found this definition to be useful because it is so true, and it expresses mathematics in a way that makes it seem doable and enjoyable. I feel like many individuals find math to be a challenging and discouraging domain, which they will never truly grasp. Many students feel like they have been defeated in the subject of mathematics, which is a stigma that educators must work to diminish in the classroom.

The speaker’s main claim in the TED Talk is that changing one’s perspective is is a critical skill to have when solving mathematical problems. He explains that every equation has multiple perspectives, and everyone’s point of view when looking at an equation may be different than someone else’s. this is an interesting point because it proves that there is no single best solution when approaching mathematical problems. The examples that the speaker uses are extremely beneficial and the way he discusses these illustrations are conducive to the viewer’s understanding of the topic. This is a concept that our class has been exploring all year, and it is something that could encourage students when struggling trying to solve a problem. In other words, if an individual is “STUCK” and having trouble in their mathematical processing, they can be motivated again once they realize that reframing the question may lead them to the correct answer. Of course, if they still cannot solve the equation, they simply need to look at the question from a new perspective, and keep doing this until they can finally solve the problem in front of them. Often times, understanding is only possible when the problem-solver takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture. The speaker acknowledges the fact that this is true for every subject matter, not just mathematics and science. The essence of understanding, then, is being able to change one’s perspective and adjust our point of view in order to learn more and more about something. He calls this ability to change perspective “empathy”, claiming that this competence is crucial when trying to understand something. It makes your mind more flexible and, subsequently, allows you to understand more about the world. He also explains how metaphors and analogies are an essential strategy to include in teaching and learning. I agree with this because I think that people learn better when a field that they are not so comfortable with (in this case, mathematics) is related to everyday life. These comparisons can serve as symbols with which the learner(s) can relate to ideas that they are much more comfortable with. Therefore, it is imperative that educators in any domain – especially mathematics – encourage their students to always change their perspective when looking at a problem, since there is never one single process to come up with a solution. It is only once students and teachers realize the importance of changing their perspective that they can truly understand how to solve mathematical problems and enable this understanding for others.

Bringing different experiences to the learning environment is necessary for individuals to gain more knowledge and enhance their learning. This is something that I think all educators must be aware of, in any classroom. It is the teacher’s responsibility, then, to connect their own experiences, and the experiences of their pupils, into their instruction.