Studies on learning show that traditional teaching methods are responsible for failure in school. This is particularly true for math and how it’s taught at the middle and high school levels. The repetitive lessons and memorizing often hold students back and limit their learning opportunities.
Despite the evidence, these falsely-held beliefs are the biggest reasons why a majority of students—and even adults—consider math to be boring, uninspiring and hard to learn. This is why it’s vital to dispel the misconceptions about learning math. Here are the top three!
1. Demonstration is Enough
In a classroom setting, teachers adopt the conventional teaching method of demonstrating the lesson while students imitate it. Writing equations and their solution on the board and asking students to learn the lesson from it is not only a waste of time but extremely counter-productive as well.
Teaching by demonstration impedes learning, however, providing logic and evidence of why an equation is supposed to be solved the way it is helps in long-term retention.
2. Math is to be Memorized
Students who have trouble understanding the process of math solutions often rely on rote learning to remember and memorize the answer. This doesn’t achieve anything considering there’s no actual learning happening here.
Despite memorizing an exercise question, these students won’t be able to solve the same problem in a different context or with different values. Encouraging students to memorize lessons rather than understand concepts can be the biggest hurdle in fully understanding and learning math.
3. Math is Uninspiring
Figure 2:Math is uninspiring
The central role of math in almost every academic field makes it far from uninspiring. The myth that formulas, numbers and equations are irrelevant and offer no real utility in the world is what keeps most students at a young age away from pursuing the subject.
One of the best and easiest ways to spark interest in students to learn math is by connecting the lessons to real-life situations. Classrooms need to adapt teaching methods that show the cool side of math in action. From career options to pointing out the use of math in everyday life such as tallying grocery expenses, teachers and tutors can help the students to have a better understanding of it.
How to Help?
There’s no one set of definitive rules that can be applied to all students in order to enhance their proficiency. What matters more than anything else is learning by understanding concepts!
Interactive learning is a great tool to help kids learn math both at home and school.
Excel Mathematics offers online math courses videos through online math learning videos that dive into the process rather than just getting to the answer. If your child is having trouble with math, sign them up to online math courses for students.
Remember, just because your child doesn’t show an interest in the subject now, doesn’t mean that they never will. They just need the right online math tutor. For more information, get in touch with us here!
