Math Blog #5: Fighting Helplessness

Just as I sat down to write out my my post for this week, I realized that most of my posts stem from interactions I have had with my siblings and not with students in a classroom and I should explain that I am not yet in my placement and so the only way I can observe math instruction in action is through the tales my siblings tell of their teachers and the homework they bring back. And so, today when my little sister came home from school and asked me to help her with her math homework I was very eager to assist, but I found that I was not as helpful as I would have hoped I would be. She was doing some sort of patterning work that I hadn't come across before and she didn't have her textbook at home so I couldn't look it up. And I felt this painfully familiar feeling of helplessness creep up my spine. A feeling that I have been having less and less since I started this math course, but still very much present.

Last Friday's class for instance, when we talked about explaining Integers and we were introduced to the soup analogy which is shown in this video:



I loved the idea of this method, it breaks down the concept and gives very helpful visuals. I only had an issue with explaining the Zero Pairs. For example let's say that you had to solve 3-6 = -3. In our exercise in class the professor added three hot cubes (positive) and then added six cold (negative) and six hot to represent the zero pairs you would be pulling the answer form.

Here is where the feeling began to creep back.

I understood how that process worked but I also immediately identified a way that a student could very easily be turned around. With every example that we did we were told that hot and cold cancel each other out. But in this instance that doesn't happen. You take what you need from the negatives and then what is left cancels itself out. But I could easily see a student cancelling out the zero pairs and leaving positive three as their answer, And I was worried that if I student did make this mistake, that I wouldn't be able to help them understand the concept. I think fighting this feeling of self doubt and fear will be my biggest challenge during this course and I fully intend to face it head on. A good teacher is someone who is constantly self improving and self reflecting that is what I strive to embody. I took to the Internet and I found this video above which elaborated on zero pairs in a different way than my professor. So now I will be equipped with two ways of approaching this concept if a student does have a question, and I already sense the helplessness fading.