Math Wishes for the New Year
For this month’s blog, we’re doing something different! As this year closes, our team at the Adult Numeracy Center would like to offer our math wishes for you and your students in the new year. Enjoy!
Find a new way of doing a math routine (like memorizing times tables) to challenge yourself and discover a new pathway to learning that routine. It could lead you to see math connections you never knew existed. For example, 7 x 8 is the same as 7(10 – 2), and I don’t have to write out my 8’s to get to the answer. (Sure wish I had known that back when I was first learning my multiplication facts!)
Heidi Schuler-Jones, ANC Director
My wish is for learners and teachers to begin a romance with math. That is to play, discover, and deepen their understanding of the why behind the how of mathematics through discovering patterns, playing with manipulatives, making connections to science and life, listening to and participating in math discussions, sharing their math stories, and investigating the cultural roots of math history.
Pam Meader, ANC Curriculum Developer/Facilitator
My wish for students: Trust that you know how you learn best.
My wish for teachers: Trust that your students know how they learn best and have resources available to support them.
Nancy Ishihara, ANC Curriculum Developer
My wish for classes is that student thinking and student voices are heard more than teacher voices.
My wish for my students is for confidence in making life decisions using math and their own preferences.
Connie Rivera, ANC Curriculum Developer/Facilitator
The next time your students (or you!) feel like giving up because you’re “not a math person”, stop and remember that the math you do every day is still math! Math is a tool for us to use in any way we need it. It doesn’t matter if we’re shopping on a budget, building a treehouse, or doing rocket science. It’s all math!
Sherry Soares, ANC Project Manager
My wish for you (every mathematical thinker — teachers, learners, all of us) is that you will notice the math around you, ask your own questions, and be empowered to pursue them. Your questions and ideas are important! I wish for us all to break free of the myth that math is only found in textbooks and can only be done the textbook way. Math belongs to all of us.
Sarah Lonberg-Lew, ANC Curriculum Developer/Facilitator
My wish for teachers and students is to embrace every opportunity to learn and grow.
Sherry Lehane, ANC Curriculum Developer/Facilitator