From: Sheila.King@f315.n103.z1.fidonet.org (Sheila King)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.math
Subject: MOTIVATION, LACK OF . . .
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 15:18:00 PST
Organization: FidoNet node 1:103/315 - Castle of the Four , Diamond Bar CA

Valerie,

I can't resist replying to your message....

-> It seems to me that it has been discussed in this group about whether
-> or not giving a student four years of FOM is more desirable than
-> risking placing the student in algebra.  (unfortunately, I am
-> currently unable to access any of the transactions before the one I
-> read).

I don't specifically remember such discussion. But one question comes to
my mind...for those of us not from Texas, would you explain what FOM is?

I assume it is some type of remedial math.

I should probably preface anything else I say with commenting that I
haven't ever taught such a remedially slow group, although I have been a
classroom teacher for 9 years. (I have taught Alg 1 & 2, plus Geometry
(incl. Honors) and a few summer stints at Pre-Alg).

-> Are these students generally judged by their teachers to be capable
-> of learning the material?

This wouldn't surprise me. I have a few colleagues who teach geometry
who routinely classify students of being "incapable" of learning the
material. I find that when a teacher expects that the student can't
learn the material, the student usually fufills that expectation.

-> If placed in Algebra and the students are unsuccessful, are they even
-> more discouraged than before?  How much of their weakness in math can
-> be attributed to low self-esteem?

My personal feeling about students who don't do well in math and have
low math self-confidence, is that the best thing to get them out of a
slump is to have MANY SUCCESSFUL experiences. The teacher needs to
appropriately guage problems that are not too easy to be trivial, but
not so difficult as to be confusing/discouraging. I think there is
nothing worse than the teacher who assigns a problem for homework that
they KNOW the students will not be able to solve with the thought that
"oh, well, they can _try_ it and then I'll go over it tomorrow." What
was the point of assigning that problem. If the teacher didn't expect
that the students could solve it, then what was the point. All that the
students learned was "Here's ANOTHER math problem I can't solve."

I expect that over half the reason these students cant' do math because
of low math self-esteem.

-> Most of these students seemed to have a vague grasp of the math
-> concepts and blindly applied random equations that they had learned
-> to use when they saw a particular pattern of questioning and seemed
-> to have little idea of why they do certain things at certain times.

Oh dear!

-> I worked on building their confidence about their math, but that was
-> difficult as i could only hold their attention for five minutes per
-> session (I resorted to teaching them individually approximately ten
-> minutes into my first lecture when I realized that they were not
-> listening . . . was that an all-right decision?).

I think you made the right decision here. Since there were only 12
students (that is what you said, right? 12 students?)

If I had a class like that, I think what I would do is prepare material
that had written explanation and examples. Spend about 10 minutes doing
similar problems at the board. Then pass out the materials and let each
student work problems while I roved and assisted individually. One ting
that I found very helpful in my Geometry classes this past year (and
these classes had more like 30 students) was that the students sitting
near each other helped each other. Which was good, since I couldn't
possibly get around in that short a time to help all the students.

-> So far my methods have been based on guess-and-see- what-happens

A lot of my teaching has been done that way too...

I am interested to see what other responses you get to this message.

Sheila
coming to you from Diamond Bar, CA (in Los Angeles County)
                                                

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