unconventional ways of learning may help …
We all know the frustration of trying to solve a math problem. We watched the professor carefully, listened attentively, and yet when we began the problem, we drew a blank – we didn’t even know where to begin. Psychologists who examine relationships between levels of math anxiety and performance on math tests have some guidance for those of us who have experienced this frustration. Gary Cates and Katrina Rhymer, from Eastern Ilinois University and Central Michigan, respectively, suggest that a student’s stages of learning may be more important than we think. Simple acquisition of math skills may not be adequate to combat math anxiety, but overlearning material to the point of fluency might help. This difference between acquisition (shallow learning) and fluency (mastery) might be a matter of the rate at which students learn.
Struggles in learning are not necessarily bad …
But what if we have control over our math attitudes? What if we could change our mind-sets to the point of embracing math frustration, and consider math struggles as a necessary part of learning math concepts? Carol Dweck is a pioneer in fixed and growth mindsets and with Kyla Hamovitz have determined that “openenss to failure” can be beneficial to learning any difficult subject. It’s worth exploring!