Math Philosophy
My Philosophy about teaching and learning math....
A person's ability to do math is a mindset. If you have a fixed mindset, saying that math isn't your strength plateaus your learning. My job is to nurture the growth of my students' mindset by providing opportunities for their ideas (right or wrong) to be recognized and explored, for their thinking to be challenged through exploration and collaborative activities, and for them to reflect and receive feedback through assessments and conferencing about their progress.
Research studies of learning and the brain, from the fields of education and neuroscience, have been brought together in the last decade to produce findings that are critically important for schools. These findings include:
•The plasticity of the brain: ability and intelligence grow with effort and practice.
•The importance of students’ mindsets for learning: when students believe that everybody’s ability can grow, their achievement improves significantly.
•The importance of teachers’ mindsets for teaching: when teachers believe that everybody’s ability can grow, and they give all students opportunities to achieve at high levels, students achieve at high levels.
•The effects of ability grouping in all its different forms: these grouping practices communicate damaging fixed mindset beliefs to students.
(Boaler, Vol.55, No.1, 2013 www.wwwords.co.uk/FORUM)