hello, i teach 8th grade students math. i just don’t see much motivation from many students. when i go over math problems, step-by-step, many of the students seem to tune me out. i have to be able to go over the problems, but it seems pointless if they aren’t going to pay attention. plus when it comes to them working independently they groan when they have to do 10 problems. i start to have some behavior issues with students. some just don’t care and slump in their seat. some of these students claim they don’t know how to do it, but i had just gone over many examples and had them take notes. i don’t mind going to each student and helping out, but when i have students start to talk across the room as i am trying to help others, i just can’t do it. i also feel that they are doign what i call learned helplessness. they feel that nothing can be done on their own. i have test material i must cover and am responsible for my students to pass this test, so if i have students who just don’t care or pay attention (when they are able to do the work if they would just pay attention) what can i do? any tricks of the trade? please help!
Re: lost motivation
this is the best advert for “Connected Math” I could think of.
Sounds like your kids need a mix of activities. Our math classes begin with review on the overhead, not too dissimiliar to the “Mountain Math” program. We do this to make sure that items that figure high on the ITBS testing - order of operations, place value, whatever, are regularly reviewed.
We go over selected question or questions from homework and then into the day’s activity which always includes exploratory groupwork, a chance to figure it out with your partner or group and, yes, handle the social needs in a positive way. Homework is graded for effort-at least show me you tried and if you really got stuck, show me you tried more than one way. Questions from the homework show up on quizzes. Each unit has a project, some longer thqn others.
My current struggle is using this program with language LD and ESL kids as it is so language rich. I suspect we will not cover as much this year but my kids will really know, I mean have personal experience and internalize, the math concepts we are doing.
Listening to one person gets boring. Have the students work some of the problems on the boards, have them work in teams, have a math bee, get some dice and work some probability problems. But let these kids in on teh act.
Re: lost motivation
today i had the most fun with one of my classes. it is a class of all boys and we are learning order of operations. i told my boys that i had a really difficult problem and kind of made a game of it. well they all got their white boards and tried to get the answer first. this class who normally misbehaves and don’t care, was actually all up and walking around checking out who got the problem correct. i loved it. i think i am on to something, but not exactly sure how to do this everyday. i want to make it fun. i try to use manipulatives to teach concepts, but not all math can be worked this way (at least to my 2year teaching math knowledge!)
i really welcome all strategies and thank those who have offered.
i do agree they are lacking basic skills, especially fractions. but i really just want them to enjoy math…i love math, but i want my kids to too
math
Forget about them passing the state test or not - don’t focus on that. Focus on them - it’s the only way. I recommend a film called Stand and Deliver where a teacher based on a true story taught calculus to ‘slow learners’.
Your kids don’t see the point of math -few do - and likely haven’t had much success with it. Some people including me could go over many problems and take many notes but when it comes time to doing the problems, I still don’t get it.
Likely they don’t either. Have them do 3 problems independently instead of 10. Go over three problems at a time - they have short attention spans and they’re getting shorter all the time.
Welcome to my world.
Have you had the “little talk” with your supervisor, head of department or principal yet? If not, it’s coming. Some kind, experienced teacher in the system is going to try to set you straight on how to teach math effectively.
The last time I had this “little talk” given to me, the head of the math department told me not to have the students read the text, not to read the text with them, just to go to the problems. And never to assign the C problems that are labelled for above average students, in fact never to assign the B problems that are clearly labelled to be done by all students, to *only* do the A problems which are clearly labelled as merely being oral warm-ups. And oh yes, the problems come in pairs, $2 is just like #1 and #3 is just like #2, so what to do in class is to do #1 and #3 and then assign #2 and #4 for homework. (I am quoting almost word-for-word here).
Three guesses why your students are acting as they are.
You can, as have far too many teachers I run into, run with the herd, give up on actually teaching math and go through the motions. The kids get A’s for zero thinking and a little easy copying, they are happy, their parents are happy, and the Grade 10 and 11 teachers will get the blame when the kids can’t fake any higher classes and they get low marks on the SAT’s.
Or, you can buck the system and keep trying to actually teach math.
You will almost certainly find that your students have very very weak background skills and those skills are scattered. They probably know how to simplify fractions since that is fairly easy to teach mechanically, but they most likely can’t locate those fractions on a number line and they almost certainly can’t add or subtract them. They may more or less know how to multiply or divide decimals, because that is mechanical, but they probably place the decimal point almost randomly by mystical incantation because the rules were taught by rote with no reasoning. They probably make errors that seem incomprehensible to you, like adding instead of multiplying or giving an answer a hundred times too big or misplacing the sub-products in multiplication, because the whole process is meaningless to them anyway. They have given up because this whole subject has been presented in a negative and confusing way and they lost their ways years ago — Sheila Tobias, in Overcoming Math Anxiety, says that she found a large number of people got off track in Grade 3 and never got back on.
I have had some success with kids at this level tutoring privately. I have to be honest and say I don’t do so hot in large classes.
You need to talk to them, to convince them that you are on their side to help them learn, that this is not going to be a daily hour of embarrassment and punishment. You have to communicate enthusiasm and interest. Then you have to find out what their understanding of numbers *really* is — most often, stalled in primary grades, knowing small whole numbers and concrete addition and subtraction, maybe basic whole-number multiplication. Then you have to build new skills on top of the foundation that is actually there. Stick to concrete and visual, fractions as bars and/or number lines, decimals the same (and decimal arithmentic depends on knowing tenths and hundredths and equivalents).
In class (and this is where large classes with a bunch of these guys backing each other up are a very difficult task) you can’t just tell or show them things — they zoned out of listening five years ago. And if you go to the spoon-feeding and mindless copying, you are just feeding the same dependency. You have to stop at each line and ask what you should do next and why you should or should not do whatever. Keep asking why and don’t take circular arguments (the fractions are equal because you can cross out the zeros — so what does that mean anyway).
It’s an uphill battle but can be improved.