Teacher-Student Communication is Critical in Math Instruction

March 5, 2008

Some students don't do well in mathematics because to them, it seems their teachers are speaking a foreign language when it comes to mathematical concepts, reported the Rocky Mountain News.

Arlene Mitchell, former president of the Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics, suggested the reason is because teacher-student communication is a critical part of any teacher's job. "It's the 85% of the kids who are in the back of the room that just don't get it, period," Mitchell said. "How do you get it across to them? And that becomes the art of teaching."

For sixteen-year-old Chris Umbriaco, a student at Bear Creek High School (Jefferson County, CO), his problem with mathematics is "all the big words," he said, "like 'integers.'" Umbriaco must take a mathematics basics class in addition to taking Algebra II, the standard 11th-grade course.

Heaven Perez, 14, also attributes mathematical difficulties she encounters to a lack of comprehension of the subject's basics. "It's weird, because they think I'm getting it, and I'm not,” she said.

Some experts think these students have a point. "Things that come easy for some of us, we take them for granted, and you've never sat and thought why it's easy for you until you're trying to explain it to someone who doesn't get it," said Jenni Harding-DeKam (University of Northern Colorado), who trains mathematics teachers.

Often, it’s the teachers who weren't especially good in mathematics who become good math teachers, Harding-DeKam noted. "A lot of them who struggled in math, they're really able to help a child who's struggling with something because they've been there and they can relate," she said.

Further, Harding-DeKam will give her best mathematics students a problem that has a counterintuitive answer that few of them can solve.  The insight gleaned means that "then we can talk about children who are frustrated," she said.

Source: Rocky Mountain News