If you ask people what their least favorite subject was in school, chances are that most people would not say Math. Why? Math tends to be the most straightforward but the most confusing for students.
As a math teacher, it can be frustrating to be teaching mathematics, and students simply don’t get it. However, there are some math teaching strategies you can use that will help your students lockdown these concepts.
Here are five sure-fire tools you can utilize in your math class today.
1) Use Groups to Your Advantage
One effective tool you can use to teach math doesn’t even require you to teach repeatedly. After laying the framework, you can incorporate group work for your students in your classmates.
If you use groups in the classroom, this strategy can be an effective tool to help solidify and reinforce the concepts by other peers. It goes from teacher-to-student learning to student-to-student learning.
Students won’t feel intimidated to ask questions and will want to help each other cement the learning concepts.
2) Teach With Real-World Applications
One of the biggest issues students have with math and sciences is that they don’t often feel the concepts being taught apply to real life. However, they’ll be more than willing to learn concepts that have real-world applications.
Math that can be used in real life will be more enticing for students. Using things like money and economics can help the students answer math questions even outside of the classroom.
3) Play Math Games
Another option, especially for elementary math, can be to incorporate math games. Using games in the classroom has a litany of benefits for the students.
Games in class encourage class participation, encourage students to take risks, and foster healthy competitiveness in a safe environment.
4) Teach, Evaluate, Re-Teach
Often you will find teachers who give a pre-test to gauge what students already know and then teach the material for a post-test later. But sometimes, this can be ineffective in teaching math concepts, especially for a teacher who has a deadline for teaching students certain concepts.
Try utilizing the Teach, Evaluate, and Re-Teach method. This can do the work of enforcing the concepts to the students.
5) Encourage ‘Math Speak’
Another effective means of teaching math concepts is encouraging students to use ‘math speak.’ Math Speak is when students discuss math in simple conversation and use everyday speech to solve mathematical problems.
Essentially, working through a math problem by talking about it. You, as a math teacher, can facilitate this kind of conversation in the classroom and outside the classroom.
Many Math Teaching Strategies
Math can seem like a lot for students. But you can make it more interesting as their teacher. If you use the right math teaching strategies, you can reach any student.
Use some of these strategies in your classroom today and watch your students grow in math exponentially.
For more articles like this one on how to integrate the many ways to learn math and more, be sure to visit our blog site.