Math Anxiety: How Everyone Can Relate to It
In Why do people get so anxious about math? by Orly Rubinsten (narrated by Pen-Pen Chen) the author informs the audience about reasons why people have math anxiety, how to handle our anxiety about math and how it affects learning for children and young adults. Rubinsten makes the point that having anxiety does not necessarily mean that you can't do math. When a person has anxiety about math, it uses up your working memory and makes it difficult for you to complete math problems and how you believe about your own abilities.
I chose this video because I can relate to math anxiety. In my family culture, the expectation was to excel academically, behave well and obey/respect instructions from adults. For the most part, I could follow these family rules except for the one about academic excellence. In my early years, I struggled with reading, writing and most of all math. I struggled with simple arithmetic (number sense) and mental math skills. In other words, I have difficulty doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in my head. The catch is that my parents and my sister can calculate complex math problems in their heads! To this day, I will call my parents to help me calculate the 30% discount on a $50 blanket on sale at Macy's.
How does this affect my students and my own ability to teach?
The anxiety I have over math has made a deep impact on my life and my career options. For many years I was a preschool teacher because I believed that I could never teach children math because of my weak mathematical skills. Although I moved forward in life by earning an elementary teaching credential and Master's in Education, my own belief in my math skills has stopped me in my tracks numerous times.
Only with the assistance of an instructional math coach and growth mindset strategies, I was able to build enough confidence to teach math to students in the K-5 setting. Now when I have to teach multiplication to fourth graders or fractions to fifth graders, I remind them that it isn't a race and that if we go too fast, we could miss important details in the instructions of word problems. Even when I demonstrate a problem on the board, I will make a mistake but I tell my students that even when there is an error, I learn from it. I "think aloud" and explain where I forgot or rushed through a step.
Conclusion
Overall, Orly Rubinsten's lesson about math anxiety is a valuable and enlightening speech about ways we can acknowledge our own fears and how we can make the changes necessary to provide more positive and open learning experiences for our students.
Citation
Ted-Ed. (2020 February 8). Why do people get so anxious about math? [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/7snnRaC4t5c
(I cited APA style, 7th edition)
Hey Julie.
ReplyDeleteReally liked in your conclusion how you demonstrate growth mindset. That's something I need to be best (citation: FLOTUS) at in the future. Liked your use of color in the title and the voice of your writing is very authentic.
Cheers!
Hey Julie, I really liked your post. I could easily identify with it because I too have math anxiety. I also chose not to teach at the elementary level because I was fearful of teaching math problems. I also thought that your writing was consistent and appropriate to your audience. I did not note any grammatical errors. You effectively used your blog visually, the background colors matching the video. You also cited your sources in APA formatting. The one suggestion I have for you would to be to provide a hyperlink for your readers to click on access your video.
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