Chapter 2 - My Reflection

How so true that Maths and Science intertwined, one compliments each other.  Interesting though, but it always makes me go crazy about it.  For example, height, weight, length and sizes, which to teach first, so that I could make the connection?  It sure is mind boggling for me.

This chapter got me reflecting on how I, when I was a teacher, wasn't providing much opportunity for risk taking, reasoning and much less, sharing of ideas.  I lacked using mathematical terms to encourage active thinking and to boost engagement of activity.  I guess that was why many children had turned too dependent to be provided with solutions."I was too quick to provide answers." It had happened 10 years back then, imagine how much damages I have caused to the children under my care.

Now, history should not be repeated so I would be looking forward to learn the strategies to teach children to become problem solvers and critical thinkers with Mathematics.  At the same time, to impart my knowledge to my teachers, whom I believe, many are still practicing how I did it before.

In further reading of the text, when mentioned about the constructivist and sociocultural theories, I do agree that we need to have these two theories to guide us to see how children learn through constructing their own  knowledge with the facilitation of an adult.  These two must go hand-in-hand to make learning possible.

This reading also gave me additional insights of the importance of teachers and their understanding towards the implications of teaching mathematics in our K levels.  What we had done so far was building knowledge from prior knowledge, the rest of the recommendation such as:

• creating opportunities for students to interact with teachers and peers which allows them to be engaged in reflective thinking;
• encouraging multiple approaches for children to demonstrate their understanding through sharing  ways to solve a problem with different solutions;
• honoring diversity to recognise each learner is unique with different collection of prior knowledge and cultural experiences;

was hardly even practiced in our Math teaching environment, which we really had to work hard on it.

Further to help our preschoolers understand mathematics, of course, would be best with the use of manipulatives where they get to have hands-on experience, a visual and tangible way to construct  knowledge and understanding.  But sad to say that we, as teachers, have often done too much demo when conducting the lesson, mainly due to time constrain for analytical thinking to take place.

Lastly, I would confess that I do not have Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. So much so I wanted to achieve what I have said would be a major task for me?  Honestly I enjoyed watching and be impressed by people who could solve interesting mathematical solutions but I am the least bothered to find out how they have done it and gave up easily when asked to solve such problems.  I hope by the end of this studies, I can be enlightened and moved forward to provide better Math programme in the school to give children a smoother transition from Kindergarten to the Primary school.