Changing Math Pedagogy

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I hate math. As Jimmy Buffet sang, “Math suks. You don’t have to spell it, all you have to do is yell it.” My aversion to math has almost always existed. I can remember crying on 4th grade because I could not divide 28 by 7.

This presentation by Dan Meyer isn’t targeted to math students, or limited to math teachers, although they are part of the primary audience. Rather, many “stakeholders” in the math curriculum and educators in general may be interested in how he goes about teaching the subject. His speech is geared toward those you have been to school to learn math, but are now adults.

He starts by reviewing aspects of the math curriculum that many in the audience are familiar with. He then shows the problems with that approach to teaching. As a student, I can relate to the lack of problem solving skills from my remembrance of my math education.

He then shows his approach to teaching, which strips math problems down to basics and forces the students to critically engage with the problem at hand.

By the end, I am convinced that a different approach to teaching math, and teaching based on problem solving, is a more effective methodology.

His visual aids are effective in delivering his message. By using illustrations from math textbooks, he can show the issues with the pedagogy. He then uses video to replace the text book problem and show his approach.

He peppers his talk with humor, though he is still a dry, quick talking, sweater vested math teacher. Yet, I can see that he is a dedicated teacher, who has developed an effective pedagogy to teaching math.

#rhetoricalanalysis #math #presentations