Sunday, September 22, 2013
Reflection #3
This weeks reading from Daniels and Zemelman was a nice change of pace. Mathematics does not often get recognized when speaking about text books. I really enjoyed that chapter 6 provided many ways to help both teachers and students interpret math texts. This chapter points out that often times, math texts are the most difficult to read and follow. I have a feeling that this just intensifies student's frustrations with mathematics. The typical layout of math texts is very different from what students are used to when they imagine a text book. As do most people, students get very uncomfortable when dealing with unfamiliarity. I believe students often struggle reading math texts because of this lack of comfort. When reading math texts, students will often get stuck in the middle of reading and immediately get frustrated. If they do not give up, then their frustration clouds the rest of the reading. This really bothers me because I believe math texts can be very easy to read if given a far chance. Most math texts give a step-by-step instruction when introducing a concept and/or formula. Also, many times there are side notes that elaborate even more on the step-by-step instruction. I think that teachers can give students directions and suggestions on how to read through math texts at the beginning of the year to help rid some of the future frustration.
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Hey Travis,
ReplyDeleteI am leaving you a comment in place of leaving one for Kelly. I think we had similar thoughts about this week's readings. I also liked that the chapters made explicit mention to math textbook. The whole time I was reading, I was questioning "Could I use this with the math book?" However, I believe that on thing that makes it easy for us to read the textbook is that we already know the material. This was a big take away for me. We have to show students how to read the math textbook for understanding.
Mindy
I agree that most math textbooks are laid out differently than other textbooks. They are full of pictures, graphs, charts, shapes, equations, etc. This can be very intimidating to many students. While I think teachers should introduce the text at the start of the year, I feel we should reintroduce the text occasionally. Sometimes we all forget stuff and need to be reminded of the importance of the text layout.
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