Exploring The Differences

Chapter 7 takes a close examination of the differences which existed between the two groupings of students, of which there were many. These differences can largely be attributed to the environment in which the two groups of students “learned” math. As mentioned previously, the learning environment at Amber Hill was very traditional in that the teacher introduced a particular topic at the beginning of the lesson followed by the completion of text book exercises which reinforced the concept just “taught” by the teacher. It was alarming to discover the huge sense of false understanding this created for the students. Alan, a year 10 student at Amber Hill, stresses this point in his statement “It’s stupid really cause when you’re in the lesson, when you’re doing work-even when it’s hard- you get the odd one or two wrong, but most of them you get right and you think well when I go into the exam I’m gonna get most of them right, cause you got all your chapters right. But you don’t.”

I wonder how many of us are victims of creating/having this false sense of knowledge in our teaching and learning experiences. It is no wonder that the children thought they could do the math, why would they think any otherwise when each class was conducted in exactly the same manner as the last- the teacher spends the better part of an hour introducing an isolated concept and the steps that have to be followed when presented with this particular type of problem. The students are then drilled to the point where every question is the exact same as the previous (which is the exact same as the examples given by the instructor), with the exception of the numbers present. When students did stumble upon a “problem” which they did not understand, students immediately looked to the teacher for help rather than thinking about the question. Assessment situations were no different from that of the classroom. Examinations were comprised of questions that were replicas of those found in the textbooks. The fact that students experienced success on the examinations may be attributed to the examinations comprised of isolated concepts which the students had just learned. Once the assessment was written, the mathematical concepts “learned” were forgotten.

Chapter 7 in Boaler’s study stresses, yet again, the importance of moving away from the more traditional methods of teaching as they simply aren’t working for all students. In order for students to experience success with mathematics we (educators) need to encourage them to delve deep, or to a depth that’s of comfort to them, into the subject and creating an understanding and thus knowledge of the subject.