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Thread: Just a question

  1. 02-08-2002, 04:19 PM #1
    MissJanetD
    MissJanetD is offline
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    Just a question

    Hi forum,
    I'm currently a sophomore at the College Of St. Rose in Albany, New York. I am a special education/elementary education major with a concentration in mathematics. In my experiences with Math and children, many children do not like math. EVen when I was growing up, a lot of kids, besides me, did not like math. I'm very nervous at the fact that I'm a mathematics concentration and also a special education major. If the students in the regular classroom have a hard time with mathematics, is it harder when you're dealing with special education students? I've never had to deal with special education students and mathematics together yet. Also, I was wondering if there's one specific way that I can start off by having my students change their ways about math. I want my students to like math and not look at it as "their worst subject."

    thanks,
    janice
    Janice Dromirecki
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  2. 02-09-2002, 03:56 PM #2
    David of Houston
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    I would work at making math "relevant" for children.

    All too often, teachers focus upon teaching multiplication. They work with addition facts or subtraction facts or division ... and they get so caught up with the instruction of computation that they don't make the instruction relevant to real life needs.

    So work with projects. If you're teaching measurement, have the students build paper model buildings of specific dimensions using square centimeter graph paper.

    If you're teaching multiplication, focus on the use of concrete manipulatives BEFORE you start drilling the facts. Show the students that 2 X 3 is two groups of three blocks. Give them blocks to sort. Work through various problems so that they will develop the understanding that multiplication is simply repeated addition.

    Play math games.

    Relate math to art. If you're teaching geometry, look for
    mathematical or symmetrical patterns in pictures. Look for geometric shapes and figures.

    Math is more than just the exercise of filling out worksheet!

    I hope this helps,

    David

    P.S. If you're a teacher in training - come on over to the New Teachers' Place - a forum at this web site. We don't have a moderator for this forum - so I just popped in here to see what was happening. You may also want to post under special education.
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