TRANSCRIPT: How To Overcome Math Anxiety

Speaker: Andrea Unger

Conquering Math Anxiety 

Hi. My name is Annie Unger and I’m a college instructor as well as a math tutoring specialist in Rhode Island. I’ve had the opportunity of working with a diverse range of students over the years to help alleviate their anxieties, and I’m very excited to share some of these tips and strategies with you today. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Today we’re going to discuss what math anxiety is and then talk about strategies for success so that you can alleviate these fears and qualms about mathematics and achieve your goals.

What Is Math Anxiety?

Let’s take a moment to really understand what math anxiety is. To define it, math anxiety is an overwhelming feeling of the inability to do math, and this can lead to fear and frustration and actually ultimately hinder a student’s progress in this area.

There are lots of aspects associated with math anxiety. One of them is the physiological aspects that come along with it. For instance, when your heart beats really fast, or your hands get really sweaty, or you feel sick to your stomach when you’re handed a quiz or a test. These are all parts of your body reacting to your own fears and anxieties about math. 

But there’s more than that. There’s also emotional aspects that come along with this. Besides fear and frustration, you could have a feeling of hopelessness, and helplessness, and even anger.

External Influences

Let's take a moment to better understand anxiety by figuring out where these fears and qualms about math come from. Well there are several external influences that could have affected you and your feelings about math, including, negative attitudes transmitted by others onto you.

Also, there are several misconceptions about math. Let's take a common misconception for example. "Hey, I can't multiply a three digit number by a two digit number in my head therefore I'm no good at math, or I use my fingers to count, so I can't be good at math". No, you do not need to be a human supercomputer to be good at math. Instead hard work and diligence will get you there.

Also, another common misconception about math is that girls aren’t as good at math than boys. But studies have actually proven that yes, more girls do feel anxious about math, however, their performance is at the same level as the boys. 

We also have prior experiences in our lives that can cause negative emotions about math. Maybe you’ve had a teacher who didn’t do a good job explaining things and you felt very weak in that class, and he or she did not have a genuine concern for your welfare, leading you to feeling that you’re bad at math when that’s not the case at all.

Another external influence is simply acceptance itself. Saying I’m just bad at math is almost a scapegoat for not putting the effort in to become really good at it.

Well when we have these anxieties and fears, they can cause lots of negative effects. You could feel a loss of self esteem. In fact, you may also see a lower overall performance in your work.

Think about your brain as being an organ, like a computer that needs to function and can only function so much. Well, if you have a computer open, and you open up a bunch of applications, what happens to the computer? Well it freezes. Your brain is going to work the same way. If your brain is processing negative emotions, worry and doubt, this is compromising the brain regions needed for number reasoning, critical thinking and working memory, all the things you need to successfully solve math problems.

Math Anxiety Self-Check

Let’s take a moment to complete a math anxiety self-check. Take your time with this, because this is not a test. And be honest with yourself. Be truthful. 

Number one, I do not like math.

Number two, I have never been good at math.

Number three, I put off doing my math homework when it confuses me.

Number four, I am uncomfortable in my math class because I’m afraid my teacher might ask me a question.

Number five, I often blank out on math tests. Number six, I am afraid to ask questions in class.

Number seven, I am embarrassed to ask for help outside of class.

And number eight, I would like math if I didn’t have to solve word problems.

Gain Control Of Your Math Anxiety

Now that you’ve taken a moment to answer the questions on the self-check, if you’ve answered yes to at least one of the questions, then yes, you have some fears or qualms about math, and this workshop, and the strategies that will be given, will be especially helpful to you.

Now what we want to do is talk about gaining control of math anxiety. We’re going to start by talking about preconceptions. When you walk into a new college math class, I want you to treat it as a clean slate and leave your prior knowledge at the door in the sense that be open to new ideas and new techniques to embrace the material. Often in a college math class, several techniques will be used to understand a certain concept. So stay away from the thought, hey, that’s not the way I’ve learned it before.

Also, make sure that you don’t procrastinate. If you are procrastinating and pushing your work off, all you’re doing is causing yourself more anxiety and more fear when you actually have to get to that homework. 

So, what you want to do is prioritize your time. One way to do this effectively is to create yourself a schedule, and display that schedule so it’s in constant view.

Control Your Own Fate

Let’s continue to discuss how to gain control of math anxiety. Well you have to be the controller of your own fate, so you must be proactive. You need to communicate your concerns with your advisor or counselor. You’ll be surprised at what you get in return. You can be more proactive and even ask to take tests in a distraction free environment, such as a testing lab.

When your working on your homework, sitting in class, practicing, whatever it may be, you need to take the pressure off yourself. Expect to make mistakes. Making mistakes is actually a productive part of the learning process. Especially in math, its important to know what you don’t know, and this is going to help us to continue to get better in the future.

Positive Outlook

In order to really gain control of math anxiety, you have to maintain a positive outlook, because negative emotions can really hinder your progress in this area.

I think this quote really speaks for itself. This quote comes from Professor Baylock at the University of Chicago. For math anxious individuals to succeed, they need to focus on controlling their - and this is my piece of addition here - negative emotions. Essentially overcoming math anxiety appears to be less about what you know and more about convincing yourself to just buckle down and get to it.

Success Strategies

Now let’s talk about strategies for success to help you feel successful inside the classroom and alleviate your anxieties. Well, often students feel lost in the classroom. You need to avoid that feeling by taking notes and staying current with material that’s being given to you. When you take your notes, ask questions. Don’t wait. Make sure that you get them clarified now because you may forget what those questions are later. 

I want you to think about something for a moment. Think about just listening to lecture alone. According to the learning pyramid, this means we’ll only retain about ten percent of the lecture once we leave that classroom. That is a big, big problem.

Homework: How To Eliminate Stress

Now how can you eliminate stress when working on your homework? Well first, make sure that you’re working in a distraction-free environment. If you live on campus and you share a dorm with others, maybe it’s essential to take time to go to the library and get out of there so you’ve got a quiet, comfortable environment. Also, when you’re working on your homework, be prepared. Before you begin practicing, take a look and review your notes as well as the textbook. Clarify your notes along with the textbook. Make sure that you’ve answered all the questions in your notes before beginning your homework. And use the textbook to your advantage. There are going to be lots of examples provided in the sections of your textbook. Try them on your own, and if you get stuck one of the nice things is, is that you’re able to look back at that example and see it worked out step-by-step for you. 

Homework: When You Get Stuck

If you find that you are getting stuck on your homework, alleviate your frustrations by using the resources available to you. For instance, you can use the office hours available from your instructor. It’s amazing how productive a one-on-one time can be as opposed to what you get from the lecture itself. 

Keep in mind that tutorial services are very helpful to you. They allow you to clarify material and keep moving forward if you do get stuck on your homework. In fact, if you’re someone who is very frustrated when doing homework, you may find that working in the math lab while doing your homework is the most effective, that way you can keep moving forward throughout the entire practice session.

Keep in mind that there may be online resources available to you. Check your textbook. Often they come along with an online site that offers additional practice which gives you some immediate gratification once you’ve submitted your problem. It’ll tell you right away whether you’ve gotten it wrong or right.

Keep in mind you also want to tap into your instructor’s resources. Ask him or her if he or she knows of any online sites that could be useful to you.

If you’re going to use these additional resources, make sure that you add time to your studying. Do not include them as part of your studying schedule, but instead a supplement to your practice outside of class.

Word Problems

Okay. I’m going to say two words that might make you shudder, and that would be word problems. This is an area that leads to a lot of frustration for students. And there is a really effective and simple strategy that you can use to organize the word problem and make it easy for you.

First thing. When you’re reading the word problem, the first time you read it, read it with no intentions. Just read it like you’re reading a regular paragraph. The next time you read it, have a more informed view. Identify your given information as you read the problem, and also identify what you’re trying to find.

Now, I’m going to offer to you a great strategy in solving any types of applie d math problems. And we call this, Given, Find, Solution. What you want to do is take the words that are given to you, and take them out of the word problem and actually put them in your own words. You’re going to start by creating a Givens column. Whether you find that the information is relevant or not, write down the Given information in that column.

Now, create yourself a column that says Find. List all of the quantities that you need to find.

And finally, your third column will be your Solution column. Here’s where you’re going to solve the problem by looking at what’s given and what you’re trying to find and associating those things together. When you’re solving the problem, make sure that you show all your work.

And once you’ve solved the problem, you need to check your answer. Make sure that you’ve answered the question completely and found all of the things that you’re trying to find as well as look back at your answer and make sure that it’s logical.

Activity

Now, take a moment to employ the strategies that we just spoke of. Take a look at this word problem. Now remember, read the word problem twice. Use the Give and Find, Solution to organize your data. And if this problem looks very confusing to you, hold on, we’re going to look at this together in just a moment.

Working The Problem

Now let’s take a moment to work this out together. I’m going to read this word problem one more time to you. 

In a class of 25 students, four times as many students felt anxious about math than students who didn’t. How many students felt anxious and how many did not?

First we must identify what type of a problem this is. This is a comparison problem. We’re comparing two quantities, and we want to do so using one variable. So let’s start by writing down our Givens. The class has 25 students. And we’re looking at two groups here. We’re focusing on the students who have math anxiety and those who do not. We’ll call them Anxious and Not Anxious.

When solving a comparison problem, it’s important to assign your variable to who everything is being compared to. In this case, if you hear, four times as many students felt anxious about math than students who didn’t, we’re comparing to the students who did not feel anxious. We’ll call them N. The students who did feel anxious, well, there were four times as many. So how could we describe this using the same variable? Four N.

Now what are we trying to find? Here we’re asked the question, how many students felt anxious and how many did not? So we want to find the number of Anxious students and the number who are Not Anxious.

Now that we have all the information off the page and in our own words, we’re ready to solve the problem.

So, there are 25 students in total. So the Anxious students plus the students who do not feel math anxiety equate to 25. Let’s express this using our variable expressions. Anxious students, plus those who are not, equals 25 students in total. What we can do now is combine like terms. Five N equals 25. Let’s solve for N by dividing by five. So we see here that N equals five.

Now, we must go back and make sure that we’ve answered the questions completely. If you notice, we’re not quite there just yet. We figured out how many are Not Anxious, but we also need to figure out how many are Anxious. Well, we know that the Anxious students are four times as many as the students who are not, so we’re going to multiple by four. That gives us 20. So we see that we’ve solved the problem completely. And we can include a little bit more information to clearly identify this for the instructor.

We can also check our answer very easily. Notice that, when we check, 20 plus five does indeed equal 25. Nice work.

Test-Taking Tips

Now let’s talk about how to prepare for tests properly so that you can feel confident when you get to test time and avoid that dreaded mental block.

First thing you need to do is study in small bits. Give yourself ample time to study about a week before the test begins. Don’t cram because that can be very ineffective for you and feel very frustrating when it comes to test time. In fact, a study has shown that studying in one-hour sessions for four days in a week is actually more effective, and you’ll retain more information, than studying in one six-hour session.

Also, keep in mind that your brain is a vessel that needs nutrients, so you need to eat before taking a test. In fact you should eat two hours prior to the test so that the energy is digested and your brain can tap into those resources when needed. 

Also, keep in mind, you need to answer the easy questions first. Once you get that test, in order to build confidence, you want to start with the stuff that you know. This does two things for you. Aside from just building confidence, it also gives you ample time to answer the questions during the test. Save the toughies for last. And if you get stuck on a problem don’t dwell, move on.

Test-Taking Strategies

Here are a few more effective strategies to take tests successfully. What you want to do is leave a few minutes at the end of the test to go back and check your answers. This is actually very useful because you’ll find that you’ll catch mistakes you wouldn’t have caught by checking them right away. 

Also, make sure to show all your work. This allows the instructor to give you partial credit when he or she can. And, make sure that you clearly identify your answers so that instructor is not searching around for your actual answer. 

And most importantly, relax. Breathe in, breathe out, and don’t panic. These will only hurt you when taking the test. Try your best to control your negative emotions.

Online Classes

Now let’s talk about a pretty new concept in mathematics which is online classes. If you’re going to take an online class, you need to be aware of the things you’ll have to be responsible for, which is communicating regularly by email, being able to send and upload documents via email, work in Word and Excel and other types of online management systems that might be associated with this course. So, when you’re setting up your schedule, you’re going to have to set up additional time to watch the lectures that are provided, review any online material that’s provided, and also make sure that you make additional time to read the discussion forms that are associated with the course. This is a place where you can also ask questions and provide feedback to help other students. And, make sure that you communicate with your instructor.

This is the only way that you can really have your instructor know you and your concerns.

Summary

I hope you use these tips and techniques to alleviate your own fears and qualms about mathematics in the future.

To summarize, you need to keep things in perspective, and what I mean here is no, you’re not alone. You’re not the only person who feels fearful about math. Make sure that you maintain a positive outline because this will help your overall performance in math by controlling negative emotions. And take pride in every accomplishment, no matter how small. And set realistic goals for yourself. Stay away from the all-or-nothing attitude. And don’t be too hard on yourself.

Adding pressure on yourself only adds fear and anxiety to what you study. And keep in mind that instructors want you to be successful, so they’re there to help you gain success.