We chose to pose similar questions for the 3 math students and 1 math teacher that we interviewed. Although we asked many more than the ‘5 Burning Questions’ required, the interviews were able to be summarized and contrasted nicely.
Our student interviewees happened to run the grade gradient and we were able to have one A student (graded at approximately 90 – 95% across all her high school math courses), one B student (regularly scores approximately 75 – 80% on tests) and a C student (who wasn’t terribly concerned with her math scores). It seems presumptuous and slightly disheartening to be classifying our students by their scores, but we thought that it might help to add a sense of significance to their attitudes towards math. Also important is that the A student and the B student are both in Grade 12 Math and the C student is currently in Grade 10 Math. All 3 students are in the Principles of Mathematics stream and have no interests to seriously pursue Math after high school.
The interview with our C-student was shorter compared to the others and was therefore fairly stilted. She informed us that she was only studying math because it was required and would probably have stopped if it had been optional except that her parents are making her. She also indicated that she didn’t like math because ‘[she wasn’t] good at it’ and that she had a peer tutor to get her through the course. However, she there are times where she does enjoy math classes and those are the ‘rare’ times when she feels like she understands a concept. The classes she does enjoy are Music and Science because she ‘gets it’.
Our B-student is a former D-student whose marks were forcibly pulled up after she decided to do math by distance with a private tutor. She indicated that she had been having trouble understanding concepts brought up in class and was too afraid of looking stupid to acknowledge her confusions in class; having a tutor allows her to ask questions immediately and one-on-one which greatly increases her confidence and ultimately her skills. She said that she was constantly unsure of herself and felt lost in the big classroom where many of her peers understood the concepts and it just made her ‘feel dumb’. She anticipates taking math in a higher level institution only if the program she chose required a math prerequisite. She seems to support the idea of some group work within mathematics to add to the lectures to allow her some time to listen to her peers’ ideas, commenting that ‘math just seems so lonely’.
The Grade 12 student who had been pulling an A-grade had a slightly different take on her math class than I had expected. Her attitude towards math was not a question of like or dislike but of competition. This was a class that she felt she could compete in and makes an effort to do so. She likes having other people consider her to be good at it and so she works hard for her grade. She is taking Math because she feels that it is an essential skill for people to have and that it provides her with the option of taking sciences in post-secondary. What surprised me was her attitude towards rectifying confusion during math lectures. She said that she was too intimidated to ask questions during class and would often just relegate her attention to copying down the notes so she could review on her own or ask her teacher after class. According to her, math class would be more accessible if teachers would take small breaks during class to diverge attention elsewhere for a short while. This would allow her time to digest the information and refresh her mind so she could return to the lectures with a renewed concentration. Her ideal math teacher would be kind, understanding and fun.
The interview we had with the teacher was equally informative, if not more so. He likes to teach from a relational standpoint and stresses that a student who aces tests is not the same as the student who really understands the material. It was important for us that he did not think that it was a challenge to get through the curriculum in the proposed time line. In fact, he thought that there was a lot of time and the challenges of teaching were at a far more personal level. He warned us to ensure we are friendly towards our students but not be their friends because teachers are still in a position of authority and must have their students respect them as such. He also advised us to take our practicum seriously and treat it like a ‘real job’, not just as a ‘practice run’.
Our group really enjoyed this project and found that the varied and sometimes surprising answers to our questions helped us to be more aware of how everyone else views math. It is easy, as students who had relatively successful highschool math class experiences, to forget the challenges that others may have. We expect that this will help us in our practicum and future teaching posts to be aware of the difficulties some of our students face and to encourage them and adjust our teaching accordingly.
