For most of my education I remember sitting in class while my teachers wrote on the board, scrolled through power points, and lectured while other students and I struggled to pay attention to every word they spoke. Even in my past three years of college many of my professors have taught the same way with lecture style classrooms as the students sit quietly trying to write down everything the professor is saying. Sometimes I feel like I didn’t even learn that much in school, but simply memorized everything in my notes just so I could pass the upcoming test.
I’ve recently learned that this style of teaching is known as teacher centered. In my New Literacy class at College we briefly talked about how future teachers should learn how to shift teacher centered classrooms into more student centered environments along with more use of technology. My idea of a student centered classroom involves more participation, discussion, group work, and other activities that allow students to be creative, independent, and opinionated. Although these are all aspects I would love to add into my future classroom, it seems difficult to do when teaching mathematics.
I have always loved math since the day I began to learn how to add and subtract, so much that I decided to teach mathematics in a high school setting. Whether I am working on problems in class or watching my teacher work out problems on the board, my attention never seems to stray. Although this is usually not the case for most students in math classes. Most people I know dislike math because they think it is “boring” or “unimportant” to them. I believe this is because math is often taught in a teacher centered classroom. Numbers, variables, and formulas are written across the board as students copy them down and struggle to comprehend or understand how those certain formulas work or the importance and history behind them.
As a future teacher of mathematics I hope to learn ways to make my classroom student centered, but this may be difficult. Mathematics has always been a pen and paper class, or should I say pencil and paper. Teachers will go through different concepts and formulas, work out some problems on the board, and then assign homework for the students to practice. I do believe these teacher centered aspects are important and crucial in a math classroom because these concepts need to be taught by someone who fully understands them. A student centered environment could also be achieved along with teacher centered by adding aspects such as discussion, group work, presentations, or papers to a math classroom. This could allow the students to be more engaged and involved which could peak the students interests and their grades!
Teaching about the history of mathematics or the importance of math in real life situations and careers would allow for more student discussion in class. It would also allow for students to do presentations or papers about this information which is a way for students to express their creativity and opinions in a class that is very concrete and analytical. I also believe that group work is very important in a math class. Math, especially in high school, can become very frustrating and tedious at times. Working in groups allows for students to help each other solve the problems and gain a better understanding. While doing this group work, students sometimes begin to understand the concepts more than they would by watching the teacher solve problems on the board.
I believe teacher centered learning is very important in a mathematics classroom, but the class cannot rely on that alone. Student centered learning needs to be combined with teacher centered learning in order to have a successful mathematics classroom. Adding more discussion and creativity into a math classroom could help students understand the concepts more and maybe even enjoy them!