Math Weekly Reflection 4

RenjiAbaraiGR (2018). Espada Numbers Brushes. [image] Available at:        
                https://www.deviantart.com/renjiabaraigr/art/Espada-Numbers-Brushes-192776736 

The Focus this week in our mathematics course was to take a look at how students solve problems differently and how there are many different ways to represent math problems. By having students explore their peers’ solutions to problems they can start becoming more flexible in their mathematics. With this in mind we had gallery walks this week and solved a number of problems. This showed each of the teacher candidates that there are many ways to solve the problem and that creativity is important in math. This is especially compounded by the videos we watched in our Math Minds Module this week.

                The Math Minds Module this week looks at how students who are successful at math tend to be the ones that can be flexible with numbers. Creativity, being open to multiple solutions, as well demonstrating an ability of connect different math concepts together is the marker for success in mathematics. To Further this concept, it is known that “individuals persist in using one general but not always optimal strategy for solving a group of mathematics problems, even when they have knowledge of more efficient alternatives.” (Liu, Wang, Star, Zhen, Jiang, Fu, 2018) With this in mind most students might get trapped by the idea that there is only one way to go about solving a problem. I at times have struggled with this and not knowing the process impeded my way of solving the problem because I was not seeing the problem as something solvable with a number of solutions but rather something that had to have a formula or a set of steps to solving. With this in mind having students think about problems would be very beneficial in making it something solvable with creativity and not something that a robot could solve with the right set of prompts.

Ru-De Liu, Jia Wang, Jon R. Star, Rui Zhen, Rong-Huan Jiang, & Xin-Chen Fu. (2018). Turning    

                  Potential Flexibility Into Flexible Performance: Moderating Effect of Self-Efficacy                        and Use of Flexible Cognition. Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 9 (2018).  

                  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00646/full