Discussion on Skemp

I agree with Zach, Jeff, Cheryl, Yiwen and Karishma’s group response on ways to improve the negative attitudes of math anxiety. It is important as math educators to work at eliminating the negative stigma associated with math; I feel that students develop negative attitudes towards math due to negative experiences or disinterest in the subject. I agree with the idea of providing formula sheets during tests so that we can step away from requiring students to memorize mathematics, but rather think critically and apply concepts to solve different problems. I also like the idea of having easy quizzes at the beginning of class to keep up with content and test understanding before progressing, however I would choose not to call them quizzes as that might evoke some anxiety and stress on students feeling like they need to perform well on them. As math is such a cumulative subject, knowing where students stand on learning before progressing to another topic is important, so they do not fall very far behind in math learning. One thing I would like to add, is by being a supportive teacher and offering opportunities for one-on-one help can be valuable to the student to minimize negative attitudes to math anxiety as it demonstrates the teacher is a caring individual concerned for the student’s learning.