Teaching Mathematics in Elementary School

By Elvin Herrera

            Mathematics has been a total different language for children to learn. The reason relapses on its content where students find symbols that represent operations, a not conventional way to get involved in knowledge. Thereby, students find mathematics intimidating, difficult to understand and most difficult to master which makes a challenge for the teacher in the teaching environment. As a response to this situation the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (2000) invites teachers to imagine the classroom, a school or a school district where all students have access to high quality, engaging mathematics instruction through some principles and standards that NCTM consider a guidance for the process of teaching mathematics in the classroom . In this way, the first thing to account for teaching math in elementary school should be the motivation; children need be motivated to do well according to the mathematics curriculum, this is part of the styles diversity of learning. Each student learns in different ways and that is the reason why teachers find around the classroom some hurdles with their students at the moment to learn math. Some of these students seem able to develop in math situations but others not. Therefore, it does not mean that those students have problems to learn math, it is that they just have learning differences. To address these learning differences of the pupils, it is important for them to have a variety of materials to dominate the mathematical knowledge in multiples ways of learning which oriented students to develop constructive or active activities. “In order to have opportunities to learn math, children need firsthand experiences related to math, interaction with other children and adults concerning these experiences and time to reflect on the experiences” (Carol Seefeldt, 2006). Consequently, the issue to reflect about teaching math is in comprehending the learning of it as a construction of the students regarding to their own mathematical understanding. Teaching mathematics involves a process of handling standards and principles for the teacher to be applied in students in order to feel with math an importance in the school and in society itself looking for continuity in the process.

            The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (2000) have worked on finding some directions for orienting the mathematics education. The standards are intended as a policy document for professionals in mathematics education as well as a vision of excellence, one which attempts to move the field well beyond the minimal competencies of the back-to-basic movement of the 1980s (Bishop, 1990). This document is a condensed result of hard investigations about what should be a real reform in teaching mathematics. Some aspects of the standards of NCTM are focus on achieving a higher performance in students following the requirements that modern education asks for students of the new era. Also, an important aim traced is having a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding at the moment to solve problems toward cases that involve situations of real life. Specifically, a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding and having students solve longer, less well-defined problems. NCTM (2000) identified some principles for school mathematics which are around of the equity of excellence in math, the curriculum, the teaching and learning strategies, the assessment to support the learning and the technology as an improvement for student’s learning. The objective of these principles is providing teachers important information about the features of high-quality mathematics instruction.

            Motivating students to be a fundamental part of the process of teaching math is one of the most important aspects to account. Teachers should always focus attention on the students who present no interest as well as the motivated ones. The motivation determines how much the pupil learns and how much pleasant he or she feels with it. Accordingly, motivating students to achieve a success in mathematics learning is a challenge to the teacher and it should be a main concern in the process. Therefore, this situation involves to teachers to work more individually with their students in order to concrete a total learning in the classroom. As Ediger (2003) says, each pupil is important and no one should fall through the slats in mathematics. For keeping this stability in students, teachers need to determine knowledge and skills in students and in this way to acquire the mathematical background that sustains a success in the process. Thus, pupils need to be motivated to do the best in the mathematics area which is very important for the curriculum and it current seems to be separated from the others areas of knowledge.

An integration of the other areas of learning could help math to be less independent but it is just an illusion that only the teacher can create in the classroom. Accordingly, creativity should be an important element integrated in math teachers. Ufuktepe and Ozel (2002) suggest the integration of music and drama with concrete manipulatives. He believes that the employment of music and drama with traditional mathematical instruction not only reduced math anxiety but also improved student performance on unit tests. The use of these techniques, music and drama, could help to achieve a major activity in the learning. Despite of the difficulty of integrating motivational methods for teaching math, teachers never have to forget that human senses are the responsible for catching everything knowledge available around. At this point, the advice made by these authors is converting these senses of perception in strategies for acquiring math successfully and at the same time, the practical approach of mathematics is accomplished because it demands to the teachers to be pragmatics instead of the traditional ones which do not still fill enough in this field of knowledge.

The weakness of almost all education systems is the lack of individually attention for students. The process of teaching has been developed in a general way without knowing that children individually are different from each other and possess diverse learning styles. In the same way, they also show different intelligences but this is something that teachers may ignore. For this reason, Ediger (2003) observes that teachers and supervisor need to study pupils in the classroom and know under which conditions pupils achieve best in pertaining to the mathematics curriculum. Through this study in the classroom, the teacher can start to work in teaching- learning toward applying different strategies for each student according to what he or she notices individually in the observations. In a general perspective about learning styles, the problems that children present for dealing mathematics are due to teachers are following a curriculum that is directed to a loss of creativity for acquiring the mathematical knowledge; the playful activity is not integrated in the classroom. Consequently, children find mathematics intimidating and difficult to manage. Instead of this, students should rather learn math in a practical way or in a proximal view to the reality as the constructivist method says.

There are some materials to consider at the moment of teaching mathematics. Bradley (2008) found some primoridal elements as educational resources which can help a lot to guide the process of teaching – learning mathematics. Firstly, Bradley identifies an educative trinomial as the center of whatever process of education settled in society, it is integrated by the student, the teacher and the parents. These human resources for education have a great responsibility for keeping a stability in the educative process. Of course, teaching mathematics also is involved in these three elements as other learning areas do too. Morever, other componets  are formed by material resources as thecnology, the phisycal space and didactic materials which are a very important piece for integrating an active or practical class in teaching math. In the same way, Bradley develop an integration of  strategic elements such as logical thinking in the use of intervention activities, using manipulatives and number lines during whole-group instruction, focusing on explicit instruction with small-groups, engaging students in partner learning and peer tutoring, integrating music, videocassettes and computer software and working problems from the textbook.

Mathematics is one of the three important areas, along reading and writing, which students must master during a process of education in elementary school. However, this learning area seems a little difficult to possess for students due to the lack of a curriculum that promotes a motivation for learning math. In such a way, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics offers great proposals that instructors can follow for getting in the students a high level of mathematics; also looking for feeling an interest about mathematics and seeing the value and beauty of it. Accordingly, teachers have to develop mathematical competences in students because teaching math is a process for evolving pupils to a reality that they must live. Creativity is an essential element in teaching so it promotes an active participation of the students. Consequently, the integration of tools or methods that allow students to be interested in learning math should be an important piece to integrate in the pedagogical teaching agenda. The opportunities of learning that the teacher offers to the students need to be varied in order to accommodate each student to his own style of learning. Following this principle, the most important aim for students is achieving individual abilities for integrating with the social environment which demands professionals in higher competitive availability on labor field.

Bibliography References

NCTM (2000). Principles and standars for school mathematics.

Bishop, Allan J. (1990). Mathematical power to the people. Harvard Educational Review Vol 60 No. 3.

Bradley, J. R. (2008). Teaching Mathematics to Elementary. (J. S. University, Ed.) Asian Social Science.

Carol Seefeldt, ‎. A. (2006). Early education: three-, four-, and five-year-olds go to. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.

Ediger, M. (2003). Teaching Mathematics Successfully. New Delhi, India: Discovery Publishing House.

Ünal Ufuktepe, C. T. Ozel. (2002). Avoiding mathematics trauma: Alternative teaching methods. Crete, Greece: Documents Reproduction Service No. ED477833.