Carrie’s TEBlog

            The article “New Way to Teach to Math Adopted” talks about exactly how I feel about math. I completely agree with the new method of teaching math. It gives students real life problems, and they have to show how they solve them not just memorize a way to do it. This new way promotes problem solving. Every problem has multiple ways to solve it. To me this is the key to math. Even if students go on to do things that do not require extreme math, they still gain things from learning it. Math gives people problem solving skills. They learn to manipulate problems and work out possible creative ways to solve them. I think this relates a lot to our discussions on Discourses. Students learn not only math Discourse, but also learn Discourse that can be applied to real life problems. They learn what to look for in problems and manipulate the variables. It helps open the book to being able to solve any problem they ever encounter. The new way of teaching math from the article, gives people even more ability to do this. They learn how to use things from a classroom to solve real life situations. Also they learn to write out all their solutions. I think once someone learns how to write out their solutions, they gain a better understanding of what they are doing. Being able to express your thoughts on paper helps organize them and make them more real. Math is not just about learning some formula that works, but learning why it works. Writing out the formula and how it is used, helps show why it works. Also working it out helps students see how it builds on other things and how to build off it. Math education desperately needs change, so I think this article is a great way to help bring that about.