The way maths is taught in many secondary schools often amounts to 'cognitive abuse', according to two educationalists who are suggesting a new approach.
They say maths pupils are often set tasks, such as memorising formulae they don't understand, that induce feelings of anxiety or fear. The result is a large number of people who find maths difficult, or even develop 'maths phobia'.
Fortunately researchers Sue Johnston-Wilder, Professor of Mathematics Education at Warwick University, and Dr Clare Lee, Education Lecturer at The Open University, have a solution which they call "mathematical resilience". This is a positive approach to learning maths which can be developed by using the right teaching strategies.
They put their ideas into practice in a secondary school, where they got pupils to work collaboratively on making short videos to explain mathematical ideas, and recruited non-maths staff to support maths learners.
The strategies encourage pupils to talk about learning maths and to take control of their own learning. Maths GCSE results at the school subsequently improved.
"The evidence shows mathematical resilience can be developed in learners when the ethos of the school encourages people to see that learning takes effort, but that that effort will result in improvement," say the researchers.
They say their results are encouraging so far but there is still further research to be done. The full research paper, Developing Mathematical Resilience, is available at Open Research Online.
The research also featured in the Times Educational Supplement on 24 February 2012, page 14.
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it always depend on the teacher, getting qualification as a teacher doesn't mean that you are a teacher, it only means that you have some level of knowledge.Some people are born to be a teacher, they know how to pass the knowledge , and some don't!
I totally agree with that-after primary school my maths teachers almost behaved like the knowledge they had was top secret (a bit like Isaac Newton-make it complicated so the hoi-polloi cant understand it). I have only just lately found any joy in maths; golden ratio's and Fibonacci numbers etc via a book called Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos. I wish he had been around 30 years ago because at 49 not only do I now get what geometry is for but I understand it and like it. I think a distinction also needs to be made between mathematics and numeracy - and maths should be taught like a different language, because thats what it is (in my mind anyway) and I believe Theresa Nunes research with Brazilian children who sell things on the streets shows this-those children can do complicated sums in their heads when buying and sellling but cant do the same sums on paper-because they dont understand the symbols.
I think a teaching strategy that lets children enjoy what they are learning is brilliant.
I completely agree with the thrust of this research. I was totally confounded at school with where these formulea and rules came from - how the hell is cos/sin worked out?! How is pi calculated and what does it represent?! Same for e/ln! There is so much that you were (and I assume still are, judging by this research) expected to simply learn and apply by rote.
Since studying with the OU I have found it much clearer - the source of rules and formulea are all explained explicitly, and to me at least it make the math much more intuative. I have also found the answers to the rhetorical questions above - well done OU!
I remember doing computations by using rules that I really did not know how they were derived. Then whilst studying A Level Physics in the early '60's' I was fortunate to have a teacher who insisted that each time we used a mathematical formula we had to go right back to first principles and record this in our answers. When I started teaching young children in the same decade, I always stressed understanding before rote. Whilst appreciating that they needed to learn 'Times Tables' I strongly felt that they needed to understand how to build them up. Maths is fun but feared by so many. As a retired early years teacher, I know I am biased, but I really believe that it is vital to get children on board and loving Maths at this early age.