Learning math can carry heavy risks for students. Math creates anxiety in students and there are often assumptions about who is “good” at math and who is “bad”. A committed math teacher takes into account these fears when offering learning opportunities to help students grow in their math understanding. Creating a rich classroom for learning math is not about lowering the rigor but about increasing the ability to take the risks of learning. Tuyet Nguyen has been a middle school math teacher for over 20 years. This session is about how to work with the fear of math to create the stamina for working with confusion.
In this session, you will:
Learn a short history of how math has vacillated between “traditional” methods and “new” methods and how the happy middle is always the place for success.
Understand how confusion can lead to shutdown, anger or giving up in students.
Explore how to help students work with confusion in order to build their stamina for taking risks in learning.
