My experience with teaching math: most students think that math is “hard” . . . so they make it hard for themselves.
Primary source of it being “hard” is the idea that they shouldn’t need to think about things and trying to have stuff “make sense”. They approach it with the idea that “if I don’t ‘get it’ when it’s presented; then it’s hard”.
It also doesn’t help when you have teachers that don’t really know the underlying material at a deeper level than “this is how it’s done” . . . so when kids don’t “get it,” there’s very little dialogue going on by the teacher to understand where the kid is coming from.
Two things that have really helped my learning. 1) I’ve watched a learning how to learn video series a couple of times and recently, taken a problem solving course. Both have been enlightening. I should’ve taken both back when I was 19, would’ve made a huge difference.
All those times I thought I was prepared for tests, I wasn’t. And all those math problems with ‘tricks’, turns out they didn’t really have tricks.
Idk. I want to learn to quilt and it doesn’t look easy. I am doing a lot to prepare—watching videos, trying some small stuff before I jump into a more traditional quilt, and I will probably be proud of myself if I succeed.
Just wanted to come back and say that I am making my way through the videos and it is helping me improve my approach to studying. Thank you for again for sharing
Will I be able to get the great I want rather than the grade I think I will get ?
Hopefully, but time will tell…
Yeah, the more I watch the videos and work smarter, the more I realize that the only thing standing between me and 100’s is time. Which is why I now maintain that people that get outstanding grades aren’t necessarily smart, they’re just people who bust their asses studying.
Next up, I just bought a copy of the book ‘how to solve it’. Written in 1945, apparently it’s the pinnacle of learning how to solve math problems.
I think most of us here are probably long past our academic learning career, so maybe not relevant. But if you’re still in school, those videos are gold.