Pedagogy in Mathematics - Teaching Mathematics Conceptually

Jovanny Pena

Manhattan College

EDUC 378
 Abstract

Mathematical instruction in the US has is heavily focused on just procedural fluency. By

focusing on formulas and algorithms lessons become more about arithmetic than true

understanding. This paper will encompass my experience at the High School for Teaching and

the Professions and improvements could be made or included in secondary math pedagogies. The

importance of conceptual understanding, then teaching procedure and a reflection or writing

piece where students can organize and clarify their own ideas and understanding.
 Mathematics is subject that build upon student’s prior knowledge. Having strong

foundation at an early age sets students up for success in continuing math courses. Today, in

secondary math courses we see math being taught by procedures and step-by-step. Of course,

procedural fluency plays a major role in math but students will benefit from having the concepts

down first. Math anxiety is something that is real and limits students desire to continue in math

courses. It affects many students and their belief in their math abilities. “One of the biggest

challenges for math teachers is supporting students in overcoming their fear of mathematics.”

(Connor, 2008, pg. 305) Anxiety towards math is partly because of the instruction. Students try

to memorize formulas, procedures and algorithms. “Mathematics instruction in the United States

has heavily focused on procedures. Because of that focus mathematics instructions becomes

lesson in arithmetic and efficiency.” (Molina, 2014, pg. 1) Math for students has become

something they try to memorize or manipulate computation. Without true knowledge of

mathematical concepts the results will be lower achievement.

Writing in math is way to support learning. It allows students to clarify and reflect on

their ideas. Often times students aren’t doing this in their math classes either. Writing opens

opportunities to students own understanding, misconceptions and their dispositions. As Marilyn

Burns said, “writing is an invaluable tool to help me assess their learning.” Having more ways to

assess student learning is beneficial to both the teacher and the student. In a study done by

Zhonge Wu and Shuhua An, they showed that students from different language ability groups

gained an understanding of math from creating visual models, developing procedural fluency and

including real world applications. The results of their study showed that the MSAR (Model

Strategy Application with Reasoning) approach is an effective instructional approach for

developing math proficiency for diverse students. Their results show that it’s possible to see
struggling students have better results in showing their conceptual understanding when using

models and appropriate strategies.

This semester I had the opportunity to work with two great teachers, Mr. Brenes and Ms.

Portal. Both of which are bilingual and speak English and Spanish. I did my fieldwork at the

High School for Teaching and the Professions. What I noticed from my time there is that there

were many misconceptions from the students. A lot of those misconceptions were from things

they had learned before. In Mr. Brenes’ bilingual class many students had trouble with basic

math. I once interrupted Mr. Brenes’ co-teacher thinking that she was explaining something

incorrectly to students when in reality she wanted them to figure things out on their own. She had

told me after class that day that many students are so behind that she often lets them struggle first

as opposed to just telling them everything. She explained to me that some students didn’t know

what plus or minus were and often mixed the operations up. One concept students couldn’t grasp

were coordinate points. Mr. Brenes had a lesson planned using directions as coordinate planes.

Many students had trouble with things like which point comes first x or y, they didn’t realize that

those switched was a totally different point. In Ms. Portal’s class, I saw students had trouble with

inverse operations. Many instead of diving something that was outside the parenthesis students

wanted to distribute it first instead of dividing the number to just get rid of it. I realized at this

that one of the main challenges I will be faced with in the future is student’s misconceptions

based on their prior knowledge. Something that I noticed both Mr. Brenes and Ms. Portal both do

is have a quick write and reflection sheet. Quick write is basically something students can do

quickly as they settle into the class period. The back of the sheet has the reflection side where

students are asked something based on what they did in class.

 I don’t believe there is one way to teach mathematics. Learning anything will be different

for everyone. However, conceptualizing is something that must be incorporated in every

mathematics classroom. Something that has been deeply integrated into math instructions is a

focus on shortcuts and procedures without conceptual understanding coming before that.

When students have fully understood concept, procedural fluency will be much easier. Detailed

step and explanation of work will connect to the concepts. If students ever forget steps to

something, knowing the concepts will be of great help because they can figure out procedures

using concepts. Once students have reached a level of conceptual understanding then teachers

can show them more efficient (shortcuts) ways to perform the same process. In order to improve

math instruction, teachers should try to maximize time and utilize connections among concepts.

Making connections takes advantage of the fact that knowledge of one topic can enhance or

compromise knowledge of another topic. By making connections that common knowledge does

not need to be taught again.

Something that one of my math teachers in high school made us do for trigonometry is

keep an exit ticket journal. In that course, we had an exit ticket almost every day and it was

always done in that same journal. Once you solved the problem you had to write a paragraph

explaining how you did it. This to me was such a great idea because at the end of the year we had

a simple and effective way to study. If students already now concepts, having something like this

exit ticket journal can be an easy way for them to study because you have one example for every

topic you covered in that class and an explanation of what you did. This also promotes writing in

math classrooms and reflections. Writing in math gives teachers insight into the students

understanding. It allows teachers to know what misconceptions or confusions students may have.
Most importantly it supports students learning; by encouraging students to use specific terms,

numbers and even pictures that may help them later on when studying.

“Mathematic instruction should engage students in applying a variety of strategies and

teach them to monitor and reflect on their problem-solving processes.” (Burns, 2004, pg. 31)
 Citations

Concepcion, M. (2014). Teaching Mathematics Conceptually.

Burns, M. (2004). Educational Leadership: Writing in Math.

Connor, B. (2008). Service-Learning and Math Anxiety: An Effective Pedagogy.

An, Shuhua., Wu, Zhonge. (2016). Addressing Challenges in Urban Teaching, Learning and Math
Using Model-Strategy-Application with Reasoning Approach in Linguistically and Culturally
Diverse Classrooms.