Do We Need a Better Way to Teach Math?

I think that what John was saying about math being something he wasn’t necessarily good but also not bad at is something a lot of kids can relate to. John mentioned his football coaches being the inspiring ones while his math teachers were not particularly motivating. I think that is because math class is simply sitting down, solving equations, and writing. Math class is not going out on a field and working out or getting to be competitive, which is something I enjoy from time to time. Math can be used in everyday life whereas Football may be a form of working out but it is still just a sport. You use math when calculating percentages of test grades. You use math when calculating discounts on clothing prices. You use math in a plethora of everyday scenarios, so if you’re asking me I say math is useful. My school uses word problems that include names, places, and quantities of certain things like food in math and I think this makes having to do lengthy problems easier.

My personal preference when learning math is to learn it not juts from the board to your paper. But for me to be able to do interactive things with it and practice the work after I have learned it. And if my teacher makes the work look fun and interesting and interacts with us, that also makes learning 100% easier and makes the class more interesting . And if we would have about a weeks notice that there is a test, quiz, or project, we could process that and do what we need to do to prepare. That is my opinion on how math should be taught.

Why we could teach math better and how to do it, for me learning is all about keeping my attention so if a teacher is upbeat and keeps me focused on the subject I will understand it well, so for me learning is about keeping a students attention and making the class interesting. As someone who was a “Gifted” student as a kid I kinda got used to not paying attention in class and passing classes so I picked up that as a bad habit. It made things harder for me in later maths where I now quickly get bored and distracted and then have to constantly ask others for help on simple math. So i believe for us to teach math better we need to make it more entertaining and upbeat so that students that get bored or distracted easily don't lose interest.

What would you recommend to math teachers to better motivate, engage and inspire their students? I feel as a student still stilling in math class that teachers should, give a little more extra credit and help. Also coming from my experience in the past and now, I always wondered why teachers give you math equations then turn around and say you won't need it till future math. I lose interest when math teachers do that. Like for example today in math class my teacher let the class fill out the form on the board. I blanked out, not because I was bored but because my classmates weren't taking the class seriously so I lost my motivation. As a student under a math teacher's jurisdiction, I would recommend that math teachers give more time for us to grasp what we just learned. Because when they go through the lesson it is hard to grasp. I hope my comment will illuminate what is going on in a student's mind.

As a student who has struggled in math for as long as I can remember. I find it very important for teachers to make math fun and more understanding for those who don't understand it as well as others. I honestly dread going to math class because I know I'm just going to take notes all day and have no understanding on what i'm doing. I agree with this article and how Mr. Urschel took a whole new wave of teaching. Having a fun environment for students can help them learn and to grow their confidence in math.

Do we need a better way to teach math? I feel that we only need basic math in life. Why do we need to learn all kinds of weird equations, different methods, and how to find certain thing when we will never use it, and if we do need it... Then we have the Internet. I do not think that we really need to learn math, only the simple things that we can use when we are older. Another reason that math is useless, is that we will simply forget all the stuff we learned. I don't really think my teacher (s) motivate me to keep trying, because math is pointless, and has no real meaning in life. How do you REALLY know what the answers are to the problem... did you just make them up? I think instead of Math, we should be learning real-life skills that will help us when we are older.

Math, for me, isn't an easy subject because for almost all of my life, my teachers never found new and motivating ways to teach math. Even though I studied the formulas and concepts over and over by myself and even tried tutoring, I somehow always forgot how to do it whenever a test or quiz was approaching. I agree with Mr. Urschel that teachers would be more like athletic coaches because the point is for teachers to encourage and show students more and easier ways to do stuff and make it exciting and memorable, rather than taking notes all day and praying you pass. I can now say that I am in 10th grade, and I have finally found a math teacher who really makes me interested in learning about that subject.

Math was easy for me till the 7th grade my teachers weren't very good after that year. I lost all interest in math then my habit carried on through my classes that i also lost interest in, and that was me not doing home work. Math has just been difficult the bland teachers sucked. Now I am trying different ways to learn math.

Math is my favorite subject. There, I said it. I am a logical person and I like formulas and getting one correct answer. There are a lot of people out there that I hate math, and I'm not sure why. Sometimes, i think it is just to hop on the bandwagon. Before I read the article, I was hesitant that I was going to agree with the argument the author was trying to make. Math teachers should be like football coaches? Being aggressive and yelling in the student's face? But not that I have read the article, I agree with him. Math teachers should be more willing to help you and educate you in future careers of math. People probably don't like math because the teachers already think they don't like it, so they don't push.

I used an online curriculum for grades 6-8 called Elements of Mathematics: Foundations (EMF). EMF truly is amazing! This rigorous program expanded my knowledge about the world of mathematics, stimulated my brain cells, boosted my confidence level, and let me grow as a student. In fact, because of EMF and the support of my teachers and EMF professors, I scored 100% on the University of Florida Dual Enrollment math placement exam on my first try. Thanks to my score, I got to take UF's Calculus 1 and Analytical Geometry course as well as their Calculus 2 as a 9th grader. This is a program that forces you to look at concepts from multiple perspectives and drives you to think outside the box. It seriously takes your processing and logic skills to the next level! Because of this, my analytical skills have definitely been refined to a sharp point. EMF also taught me resolve, perseverance, and dedication. No matter how puzzling and infuriating a problem might seem, I learned to not give up until I had solved it. The satisfaction I got when I accurately unraveled a seemingly impossible exercise is unparalleled. I have not and absolutely will not ever regret partaking in EMF. It has paved a plethora of new roads, ones that I will readily embark upon.

In middle school I was in a program called Elements of Mathematics: Foundations (EMF) where I got to learn math like a mathematician. I am now finishing a traditional 9th grade math class, so I can compare the two. The main difference is that EMF focused on the why, while traditional classes focus on the how. In EMF, I was not just given statements of mathematical laws and told to use them. Instead, I had to prove why they are true using logic. Proofs challenged my perspective on math and, while they made math much more difficult, they also made it much more enjoyable and satisfying. My EMF experience made me want to keep learning the "why" behind the formulas and graphs that I see in my traditional class, but to do well now, I just memorize a few formulas or graphs and apply them on problems. Another difference is that in EMF, the ideas were connected and made sense as part of a bigger picture. In traditional classes, different areas of math are taught as if they are not connected. In EMF, I frequently had to bring together old and new ideas and come up with a different way to apply them. The advanced skills that I learned in EMF — digging deep into a concept, solving problems creatively, and writing proofs — are not directly applicable to my math class now, but they will help me in college. I think I would have been completely bored in middle school math if I had not been in EMF. It is definitely the most interesting way to learn math that I have ever experienced.

I'm a current high school student, and I love math. To me, numbers make a kind of intuitive sense that other things don't, and I love the feeling of solving a hard problem or seeing the ways that numbers can be used to describe the universe. In my early schooling, I didn't enjoy math at all for the reasons that Mr. Urschel brings up. It felt like endless memorization, I didn't see how it could be applied to life, and while my teachers were good at teaching math, I didn't feel like they brought any passion to the subject. I think it's difficult to teach the fundamentals of math without any memorization. You can't really get to more advanced topics until you cover the basics, but many of those formulas that need to be accepted and memorized need higher maths to derive and understand. One thing I wish I saw more of in math classes was more variation in the types of math covered. We spend school working up to calculus, which, for people like me who love it, is fine, but there are so many other types of math that people might benefit from if they don't want to be an engineer. Let's be honest; the vast majority of people don't need to know how to integrate a function in their daily lives, but if they took number theory or advanced geometry, they might be able to see math in their every day, or at the very least, enjoy themselves more than in calculus. The way numbers interact and connect to every aspect of our world is beautiful, and the way math is taught doesn't capture it.

I have always enjoyed mathematics. I have always enjoyed math because for me it was just solving a puzzle that can be solved in a multitude of different ways. I would say I am confident in most math classes I have taken. I have taken most high school math classes except for calculus. My first three years of high school math was more about memorizing formulas and having to do lots of different computations. In my senior year, I have taken math courses that college-level classes and creative problem solving is found much more. If you can figure out a way that works to do the problem correctly it is fine. Whereas in other courses I would get points off for not doing it the way we learned. I mostly agree with Mr. Urschel that teachers, in general, should be more like athletic coaches. The main point that I think would help improve the classroom experience is enthusiasm. If a teacher is enthusiastic about the subject they are teaching learning and comprehension is much easier and more enjoyable than a teacher who lacks enthusiasm and just goes through the motions. I think it would be better if teachers worked more one on one with students, but that should not fall on them as they have to teach a class of 20 people or more and can not always take time to focus one on one with a struggling student. I think that if everyone put more effort and enthusiasm into classes and math class specifically that math would be a better education experience.

Mr. Urschel is a very impressive young man and I found his article and his story inspiring. As someone who has taught math for 18 years, I can identify with his thesis; I try to show my students how beautiful math is; how interconnected the ideas are; and how important both numeracy and mathematical thinking are to our modern society. That's the easy part. All students have to take math class every year, and most of those years have created both a lack of interest and a lack of confidence, resulting in a lack of effort. Football coaches, on the other hand, only work with students who are most interested, have put in the most work and shown the most potential. Now, consider the way our society and our schools treat those who excel in football ("stars') versus those who excel in math ("geeks") We are at a crucial time in history and our economy for developing math skills and math thinking in all of our citizens. Improving math teaching is one important part of the puzzle, of course. However, we must change the way we view learning and excelling in math at home, in our community and in our schools, for it to be valued and thus worthy of universal attainment.