Category Archives: 3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment

I’m Going Back to Nursery!

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The last time I even stepped foot in a nursery classroom was 16 years ago when I was there as a learner. I have nothing but fond memories of nursery- playing in the sand pit, making new friends, playing houses or schools, playing outside in all weather conditions and even sitting in the reading corner by myself with a picture book.

Tomorrow I’m going back as a teacher. Throughout the rest of this university semester I will be visiting a Dundee City Council Nursery every Wednesday afternoon to talk and play with the children. The purpose of this is to help my own transition into my official early years placement next semester. The vast majority of my teaching experience is with the upper years of primary school and with secondary school pupils. My first year university placement was in a P.7 class and during my Learning from Life placement in second year I mainly taught high school and college classes. Although I wouldn’t ever change the experiences I’ve already had- as they’ve all been hugely beneficial in building my confidence as a teacher- I’m excited to get some brand new experience and have some brand new opportunities to learn and grow as a teacher and as a person.

I’m also very interested to see how a nursery may have changed over the past 16 years. Do the children have more or less time to play and learn freely? What games will the children be playing outside? What will the children’s discussions be about? Will there still be a reading corner and will there be children using and enjoying it? The world has changed incredibly quickly over the past 16 years and I’m intrigued to see how this comes across when I compare the generation of children I will be working with to the generation I grew up with.

Despite my lack of experience working with children in the Early Years I don’t feel at all nervous. Personally I think working with and talking to younger children comes a lot more naturally to me than working with older children (hopefully I’m not proven wrong..!) and I’m very excited to get stuck in and play all the games children’s imaginations can think of!

 

 

Have I Discovered Mathematics?

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If you had asked me this time last year whether I would have chosen to do a mathematics module at university I would have said no- absolutely not. Fast forward 6 months and if you asked me how I was feeling about the upcoming new semester and the Discovering Mathematics module I had in fact chosen to do I would have said I was dreading it. Maths has never been something I’ve ever been particularly excited about (as you can see from my very first maths blog post). However if you asked me today how I feel about maths- after having just submitted my discovering mathematics assignment- I would say it excites and intrigues me.

Over the past three months, I have found myself getting excited about our mathematics inputs. I have had my mind expanded by learning about the origin of numbers, the mathematics behind board games, the universe in which we live and so, so much more. I’ve learnt different teaching techniques, I’ve built my knowledge and most importantly, I’ve built my confidence.

At the start of this module I completed the Online Maths Assessment  and scored 76%. Before starting this blog post I completed it again and scored 76%. Although I got the exact same score in both attempts, in my second I felt a lot more confident (even getting a little bit excited when a question about the Fibonacci sequence came up!). I have realized that maths can be fun and as someone who has always described themselves as ‘creatively minded’ I have realized that I can use this to my advantage when teaching mathematics rather than seeing it as a hindrance.

Although I did teach maths lessons whilst on my first year placement- even choosing to teach maths for my summative assessment- I think in the future I will be able to incorporate different subject areas within my lessons and be a more enthusiastic teacher. I believe this will allow me to engage the children in my lessons better and will hopefully allow them to feel a similar excitement when learning mathematics.

But what about that dreaded maths anxiety-is it any different? I do believe my maths anxiety has been seriously reduced, I don’t get a rush of worry when anyone mentions sums and I don’t panic when thinking about teaching it in the future. However I do think it would be very easy for me to slip back into a maths anxious frame of mind. In order to stop this from happening I must continue to engage with the subject, whether this be through the OMA or just doing maths in my head rather than using a calculator.

So, throughout the discovering mathematics module I’ve gone from feeling like this…

to feeling a bit more like this…

 

My Relationship with Mathematics- Maths Anxiety

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I’ve always had a very love/hate relationship with mathematics. Throughout primary school I was always in the top maths group, coped well with the work I was given and, as far as I can remember, thoroughly enjoyed the work I was doing. Upon entering secondary school, I still felt confident with my maths abilities however I think some of the enjoyment started to die down, this may have been due to the work I was given or the way it was being taught in a secondary school setting. Despite this, I still felt very confident throughout my first and second year.

Going into third year, I was put into a credit/general Standard Grade class. Again, I felt very confident throughout my third and fourth year studies and began to enjoy it more which I believe was due to my teacher’s style of teaching. Admittedly, there were some aspects of the course which took me longer to grasp than others but I managed finish the two years with a credit grade 1.

My time in Higher Maths is where I believe my maths anxiety began. During Higher Maths we would be given a homework worksheet most weeks which we would have a week to complete and were not allowed to leave any questions unanswered without a valid reason (“I couldn’t do it” was not a valid reason). So, every week I found myself at my maths teacher’s classroom door asking for help with one or two questions on that week’s homework. A vast majority of the time, once the method had been clearly explained to me I managed to solve the equation myself. Looking back, this makes me think it wasn’t the numbers and equations I found difficult but the problem solving and the words used in the questions. Despite my difficulties throughout Higher Maths I did manage to pass all three NABS and was able to sit the exam. I think this also proves that I do have skills in maths and I am able to do the arithmetic I just need to build my confidence within the subject.

But how do I build my confidence? One of my goals for this year is to build my confidence in mathematics so I do not feel high levels of anxiety when teaching it in the classroom. I aim to do this by completing the Online Maths Assessment multiple times throughout the year, hopefully improving each time. Additionally, I plan to do some reading around the subject in order to familiarise myself with some of the vocabulary used.