http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/05/how-do-you-spark-a-love-of-math-in-kids/
How Do You Spark a Love of Math in Kids?
What is it about middle school and mathematics?
Decades of educational research demonstrate that during the years between
elementary school and high school, many students disengage from math and
don’t regain their interest—to the detriment of their later schooling, and
even their adult careers. Astudy that followed 273
students<
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361476X98909912>
over
the course of their first year of middle school, for example, found that by
spring, the pupils described mathematics as less valuable than they had the
previous fall, and reported that they were investing less effort and
persistence in the subject than they had before.
Andrew Martin, a researcher from the University of Sydney in Australia, set
out to investigate what made middle-school students switch on — or switch
off — to math. The findings of Martin and his
colleagues<
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=2011-24239-001>,
which were published earlier this year in the *Journal of Educational
Psychology*, were based on data from 1,601 Australian middle school
students, from 200 classrooms in 33 schools.
Offer a challenge that’s well-matched to the child’s skill level, with
clear goals and unambiguous feedback.
One of the factors they identified in turning middle-schoolers onto math is
self-efficacy: students’ sense that they are competent and able enough to
solve mathematical problems. To foster and encourage this in kids, Martin
recommends that teachers and parents “restructure learning so as to
maximize opportunities for success” by building on skills that students
have already mastered, for example, and helping kids set challenging but
realistic goals.
A second element critical to switching students onto math is the value they
attach to the subject. Parents and teachers can foster the sense that math
is an important and relevant body of knowledge by demonstrating the
usefulness of math in the real world, and by making themselves positive
role models for valuing math. In fact, parents’ own interest in math is
another important component Martin and his coauthors identified.
Another simple but powerful trigger: Students’ own love math was a strong
predictor of their engagement with the subject. Parents and teachers can
foster the enjoyment by creating what psychologists call good conditions
for “flow”: a challenge that’s well-matched to the child’s skill level,
with clear goals and unambiguous feedback.
How do kids get turned off to math? Very simply, the absence of all of the
above. Students who feel little self-efficacy in math, who fail to see the
usefulness of the subject, whose parents evince a lack of interest and who
don’t enjoy doing math are the ones who will turn off and shut down.
Martin adds that there is one other element that leads middle-schoolers to
disengage from math:math
anxiety<
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/03/how-to-deal-with-kids-math-anxiety/>.
He recommends that involved adults help these anxious children to learn
relaxation techniques, to deal more effectively with fear of failure, and
to prepare for high-pressure situations like math tests. By targeting
students for such interventions while they’re still in middle school,
parents and teachers can turn on a light that won’t soon be switched off.
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Received on Tue May 29 2012 - 00:24:07 EDT
