REFLECTION PAPER

As can be seen from exam results and students’ general view about mathematics, there is a
mostly common situation while understanding and solving problems. Why the most people
have similar issue about the subject? Is there a misconnection in between numbers and
humans about communication or people do not have skills to figure out content of advanced
mathematics? We can say both can be reasons of this situation, but above all people need to
focus on solutions. At that point, teachers show up to the stage to solve this understanding
issue of students about mathematical subjects because they are always with students and they
can communicate with them easily to understand what the real problem behind the situation is
and they can solve it. The question is ‘’ how a teacher can help his/her students learn
mathematics with understanding? ‘’

In my opinion, there are some steps for a mathematics teacher to make students understand
and like the subject. Firstly, students need to feel trust to their teachers and their
professionalism about the content because if they lose their reliance, then they do not listen
lessons and they become lost, so a mathematics teacher should possess most of things about
their matters. Secondly, teachers should check prior knowledge of students about the subject
to see the interval between where they are and where they need to reach, and they can create a
plan for students. Then, they need to encourage students to make them participate lessons by
making some group works or talking about subjects with them and take their opinions, which
make students feel like their thoughts are important for someone. Moreover, this type of
works makes them discover their own understanding and solving problem ways, which make
them improve their self-confidence, and think about how a mathematical process goes, also
get some point about conceptual and procedural knowledge about the content easily. After
that, in my opinion, teachers should let every student explain the topic that they talk about to
each other during lesson or after lesson. According to me, this kind of a study makes students
fill in blanks in their mind by communicating and, I consider that communicating is as
important as solving problems in mathematics to learn everything. Then, teachers should let
students solve questions by themselves for a while to think about problems and their own
solution ways to make them see whether they are in a correct or wrong way, which is
metacognitive approach to students can monitor themselves.

In my opinion, with these approaches, it can not guarantee that students can solve every
problem in exam on the right time, but it can be obvious that our next generations will be
learnt how a person communicates, how rationale thinking works and focusing on solutions
instead of sticking to problems. What I am trying to explain is that if teachers do not teach
mathematics as calculating some numbers and if they teach how students can think
mathematically, teachers can teach mathematics with understanding and students would start
to change their view about mathematics and it would be easier to understand even advanced
mathematics for an ordinary person, who believes s/he does not have skill to ‘’make
mathematics’’.

Berke Koruk 2296671 MHED