Teaching has been regarded as one of the most respectable professions with a pronounced purpose, of passing the knowledge to those who seek. It plays a crucial role in their overall development. As Barack Obama puts it, “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the colour of their skin or where they come from. It’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” A good teacher will need talent and abilities, both refined and cultured. Teaching can be a “creative art” no matter what’s the subject that teacher teaches. When “born teachers” teach, learning becomes more effective and the learners can get more out of the given teaching-learning process.
Of all the subjects I had learnt, I have always been passionate about mathematics. Being an aspirant of becoming a Mathematics teacher, I have always observed how the students, for that matter the people in general, view mathematics. I have found that for the majority it is a nightmare. I have learned that many of the people detest this subject. This is basically because of the absence of understanding of the concepts in the subject, may be right from their school days. The reasons could be, either as students, they didn’t work hard enough to grasp it, or their teachers didn’t try hard enough to make them understand or may be both. This also made me think about all those aspects that I should consider for providing quality teaching of Mathematics.
Mathematics is a tool universally required to ensure an easier human life. There is literally no field that is exempted from the applications of mathematics. Only a good and dedicated mathematics teacher can make the students of the middle / high school understand about the significance of this topic and help them grasp the concepts, making the subject interesting. So my first attempt as a mathematics teacher would be to make the students understand this fact. I will have to brief all those major applications that are useful in the daily life which are based on the principles of mathematics
I will be using the traditional teaching tools like the blackboards, charts, pictures, etc. as well as the modern tools like power point presentations, animations and multimedia to teach the subject. I believe that incorporation of both type of tools facilitate better understanding of the concepts. This is because of the multisensory perception that happens while the appropriate audio-visual aids are employed.
I will use the conventional approach of teaching the mathematical ideas which would follow a systematic way starting from elementary mathematics like arithmetic, geometry, algebra, etc. Classical method that uses deductive reasoning will be tried wherever possible. For teaching certain ideas like that of the multiplication tables, I would be resorting to the traditional methods like rote learning, in which formulas are repeated and memorised without any reasoning. Exercises would be given to reinforce what is already learnt and problem solving would test the students’ understanding of the concepts. Apart from these, I would like to include newer methods too. I would like to make the students understand what they are doing, instead of focussing on getting the correct answer for the problems. I believe that would help better understanding of the key ideas. I would follow a relational approach that helps the students to solve daily life problems by applying mathematics. I would teach the subject using problems and puzzles that evoke their interest and would use computers for the understanding of the ideas and doing the calculations.
Adopting the suitable teaching methods according to the learning style and readiness of the students would prove as an efficient practice to teach the subject. So I would focus on the students while selecting the teaching method for each of the topic. My vision is that, my students should be able to understand and apply what I have taught them, in their real life situations. For achieving that, I would like to integrate traditional and modern methods of teaching mathematics. As a result, the students would perceive and apply the mathematical concepts in the correct manner in their future life.
Reference
Van de Walle, J., Karp, K., and Bay-Williams, J. Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally. 8th ed. United States: Allyn and Bacon, 2012. Print.
