For my second year elective in my MA Primary Education course I have chosen Discovering Mathematics, a module highly recommended to me be older MA students. However this was not my sole reason for selecting the module.

During high school, my favourite subject was maths. While my friends were all creative individuals, I seemed to have a more mathematical mind. I would happily sit through my algebra homework as they compiled art folios with ease. However, in schools I witnessed a staggering number of cases in which children were claiming to not understand maths, therefore closing their minds completely to the idea of them ever being able to in the future. Arem (2009) suggests that it is easy for pupils to get overwhelmed when working in maths causing them and others to believe they are in the early stages of developing maths anxiety, a term coined to describe the fear many possess when it comes to dealing with mathematics.

I do believe that this is something that can be overcome as I am a prime example. I did not enjoy or feel very capable when doing maths in primary school. I hated certain topics with a passion and upon starting secondary school was placed in a medium to low level ability class. However, when my high school teacher began our maths course something clicked. I was able to understand things due to the way she explained them and progressed to the top class by the end of the year. It made me aware that a different style of teaching was necessary to get my out of the seemingly endless cycle of ‘I just can’t do this’.

This is why I have chosen this module. I want to learn different methods of teaching maths, different ways of explaining topics as that is what each individual child is- different. In order to appeal to each and every learner when teaching maths, I need to be able to teach in various different methods and be able to explain things in a variety of ways to aid all learners in mathematical thinking. I want to help guide those who believe they hate and are incapable of doing maths into seeing that everyone can do it and that it can be done in fun and active ways. Over the course of the module I hope to gain as much experience in active maths teaching as I can so that for my future classes, maths anxiety is a thing of the past.

Reference-

Arem, C, (2009), Conquering Maths Anxiety, 3rd Edition, Canada: Cenage Learning Inc.