Working the elementary environment you begin to see these small signs of anxiety in some students. When I came across this article I thought, if we can help these issues when they begin at a young age will it have an effect on the student later on?
The article is from the University of Chicago but I believe there are some good points made about this topic of math anxiety and how we as teachers can help our students overcome this problem.
http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/09/12/math-anxiety-causes-trouble-students-early-first-grade
I had no idea that higher achieving students' working memory was effected more from anxiety than lower achieving students. This really puts a new perspective for student achievement. I think that it is a great idea for students to write about their anxiety towards math to allow for them to reflect on and realize what bothers them. If they can get an idea of what bothers them, they may be able to gain control of it easier.
ReplyDeleteI do not doubt the results of this study, but I question its validity. If the students' fears of mathematics were solely judged by "how nervous they felt to go to the front of the room and work on a mathematics problem on the board" then it is absolutely flawed in design. While it is true that math anxiety = less confidence = student doesn't want to go up to the board in case the answer's wrong, there are different types of anxiety at play in this particular situation.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a little concerned about this finding: "Math anxiety was also common among low-achieving students, but it did not impact their performance." Actually, I believe it DID impact their performance, but in a less direct way. It is because of this math anxiety that students are not able to learn math as well as the so-called higher achieving students. Both high and low achieving students would benefit from strategies targeted at math anxiety.
I absolutely agree that there are a few good ideas in this article to help our students overcome this problem. I believe it all goes back down to mindsets, and posing math as "challenges" rather than "performances." The other problem is, many teachers have math anxiety themselves... perhaps we should attempt to change that first, especially in the elementary panel where homeroom teachers teach all the core subjects.
It is good to read and know about math anxiety, because I have never heard about it before. After reading this article, I have learned that math anxiety could have a big impact on high-achieving students. Another good thing I learned is that the burden of math anxiety could be lessen by writing them out. It would be even more effective for younger students to express their math anxiety in drawing.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite true. It is just like how we overcome our fears. After we realize things that fear us, we need to write it down, face it, then overcome it. Writing down and/or expressing things ,which we are anxious about in math, would help us know more about the anxiety. As we understand more about our anxiety, it is easier for us to overcome about it.