Oh, Bitter Irony
Do as I say, not as I do... no, wait!
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
So I'm a math major at the University of Texas, and I plan to be a teacher in secondary education (most likely high school). UT is very fortunate to have a program for future math and science teachers called UTeach that gives undergraduates the opportunity to be certified as a teacher in only four years.
For those of you that don't know it, usually for secondary eductaion, you would first get a bacholors degree in the field you wish to teach, and then after graduating you would have to go back and complete another year or two to become certified to teach. To point out how bad this can be, a friend of mine graduated from Texas A&M a couple years ago with a degree in english. She wanted to be an english teacher, and decided to go back for her certification at UT San Antonio where her fiance was going to medical school. After being accepted to UTSA she went to put a schedual together that would get her her certification and was told that she would need to take two freshmen english courses that didn't transfer from A&M even though she had a degree in english! Anywho, to make a short story long, the UTeach program makes this a little bit easier for the prospective teachers.
Within the UTeach program there is one major theory of teaching that they push. It's called Inquiry based learning for science students, and math as problem solving for math students. It breaks down like this. There are many studies that show that students learn better if they have a voice in how they are being taught. If they have a chance to figure out how and why things work, it is more likely to stick in their minds.
Tell me if this is familiar to you. You went to a math class. The class started out by handing in homework and review problems that people had with the homework. After that the techer would introduce new concepts and demonstrate how to solve this particular type of problems. The teacher would then give the students a problem set that reinforced how to solve these types of problems. The homework would be more of the same. If you are one of the kids that didn't get math I'm sure you can attest to how BORING and useless this is.
Math as problem solving, instead, poses a question to students: Theres a ferris wheel. How would you graph the verticle movement of the people on the ferris wheel. This gives the students a chance to come up with their own ideas of how things will work. Some will figure that because the ferris wheel moves at a constant speed, and your going up and then down the graph will be look like a series of W's. Otheres will key in on fhe fact that there is angular velocity (up and down) but there is also rotational velocity (around in a circle) and that the graph will look like a Sine wave.
The point of the whole excercise it to get the students to think about these problems instead of just introducing the students to the concept of rotational velocity and then telling them that the graph will look like a Sine wave.
One of the greatest things I have learned in the UTeach program, and what has completely changed my philosophy of teaching came from a 6th grade math teacher. He told me, "You and I are the kids that got math. We could have a teacher exaplain things to us and tell us this is how it is and it would make sense. What you have to understand is that most kids aren't like that. They will not understand math the same way you and I do. The trick is getting them to understand math in a way that makes sense to them." And that is what Science as inquiry and Math as problem solving does.
So, I'm going to UTAustin. I'm learning all these great ways to help my future students understand math in a way that will help them, and I'm really jazzed about this... Until I go to my next non-UTeach class. Where the Professor proceeds to collect homework, introduce new material on the board and demonstrate how to solve it. Then assigns homework that re-inforces the material we went over in class.
Whee way to dash all my hopes for a "higher" education!
For those of you that don't know it, usually for secondary eductaion, you would first get a bacholors degree in the field you wish to teach, and then after graduating you would have to go back and complete another year or two to become certified to teach. To point out how bad this can be, a friend of mine graduated from Texas A&M a couple years ago with a degree in english. She wanted to be an english teacher, and decided to go back for her certification at UT San Antonio where her fiance was going to medical school. After being accepted to UTSA she went to put a schedual together that would get her her certification and was told that she would need to take two freshmen english courses that didn't transfer from A&M even though she had a degree in english! Anywho, to make a short story long, the UTeach program makes this a little bit easier for the prospective teachers.
Within the UTeach program there is one major theory of teaching that they push. It's called Inquiry based learning for science students, and math as problem solving for math students. It breaks down like this. There are many studies that show that students learn better if they have a voice in how they are being taught. If they have a chance to figure out how and why things work, it is more likely to stick in their minds.
Tell me if this is familiar to you. You went to a math class. The class started out by handing in homework and review problems that people had with the homework. After that the techer would introduce new concepts and demonstrate how to solve this particular type of problems. The teacher would then give the students a problem set that reinforced how to solve these types of problems. The homework would be more of the same. If you are one of the kids that didn't get math I'm sure you can attest to how BORING and useless this is.
Math as problem solving, instead, poses a question to students: Theres a ferris wheel. How would you graph the verticle movement of the people on the ferris wheel. This gives the students a chance to come up with their own ideas of how things will work. Some will figure that because the ferris wheel moves at a constant speed, and your going up and then down the graph will be look like a series of W's. Otheres will key in on fhe fact that there is angular velocity (up and down) but there is also rotational velocity (around in a circle) and that the graph will look like a Sine wave.
The point of the whole excercise it to get the students to think about these problems instead of just introducing the students to the concept of rotational velocity and then telling them that the graph will look like a Sine wave.
One of the greatest things I have learned in the UTeach program, and what has completely changed my philosophy of teaching came from a 6th grade math teacher. He told me, "You and I are the kids that got math. We could have a teacher exaplain things to us and tell us this is how it is and it would make sense. What you have to understand is that most kids aren't like that. They will not understand math the same way you and I do. The trick is getting them to understand math in a way that makes sense to them." And that is what Science as inquiry and Math as problem solving does.
So, I'm going to UTAustin. I'm learning all these great ways to help my future students understand math in a way that will help them, and I'm really jazzed about this... Until I go to my next non-UTeach class. Where the Professor proceeds to collect homework, introduce new material on the board and demonstrate how to solve it. Then assigns homework that re-inforces the material we went over in class.
Whee way to dash all my hopes for a "higher" education!
