Pouring over the list of interests we generated in relation to possible research topics as well as the planning document completed during our breakout sessions “Driving question and passions” it was clear that I wanted to look into teaching strategies that address my students math related anxiety and any experienced trauma related to this anxiety.
Thinking deeper about the questions I still had related to this topic I came up with a list of concerns that would, hopefully, help to kick start my research. If I look into the answers to the following questions I believe that a narrative structure will begin to form: Are my students familiar with anxiety and how many of them have specific feelings of anxiety centered on mathematics? What experience(s) are the root to my students math related anxiety? Was this root experience teacher driven or content driven? Have my students experienced teaching strategies that reduced feelings of anxiety in any classroom? What actions have teachers taken that have increased tension or feelings of anxiety in any classroom? Specifically related to my site and our reflections on community responsive, sustaining and humanizing (CRuSH) practices over the last couple years, how can I adapt these practices to work in the context of my classroom? Teaching a class where the entire population of enrolled students had previously failed the same course, with a different instructor, provides me with the ideal test group for strategies aimed at increasing my students learning capacity and desire to succeed despite math related anxiety. I am unsure of specific need to knows but the fact that they are repeating a math course could be a point of origin that would allow me to contextualize students current success or failure in terms of the success or failure of my ability to address their math related anxiety through my teaching practices. I could also create a test for the level of student’s anxiety related to math and continue to check in with students, reassessing their level of anxiety as the year progresses. After collecting data over time I could see if there is a correlation between decreased levels of anxiety and increased capacity evidenced through academic performance. I am unsure of how exactly to proceed but for now I will continue to refine my EQ and think of ways that I can collect data to measure my need to knows.
5 Comments
Jona Sandau
9/9/2018 06:39:03 pm
Hello there! I think your essential question is amazing. I am super excited to see how your journey begins to unfold. I am familiar with anxiety (unfortunately), although not around math. However, I feel like you are a major HERO to be looking for ways to help students who suffer from anxiety--and possibly come across ways to prevent it altogether. This seems like one of the greatest areas of interest ever. Your students are incredibly lucky to have you!
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Brandon DeJesus
9/10/2018 01:34:58 pm
Thank you! Unfortunately, a huge section of our population suffers from some form of anxiety. I see students who are at times so anxious during testing that they completely forget things they demonstrated minutes before. However, I have noticed that as students feel better prepared their anxious feelings are significantly reduced.
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Julie Lovie
9/9/2018 07:19:05 pm
Brandon I really like how you are understanding the learning is so connected to how the students are feeling. I like that you are connecting this to the CRUSH training as well. This is an education revolution teaching math is way that celebrates mistakes, is humanizing, encourages our students to work together, this is really important. Your students are fortunate to have a caring teacher wanting to learn more so you can support them. You and I have a very similar situation I would really like to talk with you more about this topic.
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Happy Johnson
9/10/2018 08:36:12 am
Greetings Brandon. Very interesting idea, I like it. Please allow me to ask some questions in an attempt to stimulate your thinking.
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9/10/2018 02:19:51 pm
I think this is such an interesting topic - I know when I was at school many students suffered from 'Math anxiety' and for some of them if you mentioned the word 'Math' you could almost see the alarm on their faces. Just wondering, are all of your students at a similar ball park level or do some have greater knowledge than others? Will you teach them different topics using different strategies to see which they respond best to? The homework reading "Brighton, Embarking on Action Research" really seemed to hone in on in this - maybe you could use some of their ideas to help you.
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