Teaching



Teaching

Writing Philosophy of Mathematics Education

The Critical Thinking Approach to Learning Mathematics is an excellent Series of textbooks, which has been used for over 15 years with thousands of students to successfully improve math vocabulary and the understanding of mathematics. This series has been used in classrooms, home schooling, math labs, tutorial or self-study situations, or industrial employee improvement programs (Muscott, O'Brien, 2004, 373-390).

In this age of digital technology, calculators, computers, educational software, and calculator-based laboratories (CBL) have become important elements in the learning and teaching of mathematics. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) strongly endorses the increased use of these new technologies in mathematics education (Muscott, O'Brien, 2004, 373-390).

Disucssion

Understanding Algebra is the key to passing a university level mathematics course and this, in turn, is the key to obtaining a higher paying position in a student's future. Traditional texts contain more content than can reasonably be learned in a school term by a student; (Brynjolfsson, 2004, 102-281) in the case of mathematics texts, "more is not better" it is simply more. In order to complete the text and pass required tests, students and teachers are forced to use memorization as the main mode of learning; memorized information is stored in short-term memory and is soon lost forever (Smith, 2004, 45-63).

Traditional texts contain so much information that there is not enough time to teach critical thinking and problem solving. More and more parents are stating that their student, who used to enjoy and like mathematics, now hates math because of the great amount of memory work involved in their traditional text.

The Critical Thinking Approach to Learning Mathematics Series of M.T.E. contains all the necessary mathematics from arithmetic to algebra to pre-calculus, but eliminates the unnecessary and "frill" (DiNardo, 2004, 200-291)concepts in that course.(Muscott, O'Brien, 2004, 373-390)

In today's math education, students are taught to memorize math facts; because teachers and educators feel this is the best approach to have better results on standardized tests. In many cases, this is a necessary result for schools to obtain federal and state funds (Gifford, Hoachlander, Tuma, 2003, 85-99).

Unfortunately, memorization of math facts not only does not guarantee the understanding of math concepts; it often has the opposite effect on learning these concepts.

Interview with a district school teacher

Why do you want to work for our district?

I went to school in Bethel Park and I am proud of the education I ...