How Can Maple Learn Help Address Math Anxiety in Classrooms?
Math anxiety is referred to as negative behaviours such as uneasiness and general avoidance when asked to solve math problems. For teachers and teacher candidates, this can be due to various reasons such as previous negative experiences in math classes, learning styles that conflict with their math teacher, lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem, and stereotype issues related to the belief that math is for men only. Although it is commonly believed that math anxiety only exists in students, research has shown that math anxiety is present among elementary teacher candidates and elementary teachers, particularly women. Furthermore, research has shown that female teachers who suffer from math anxiety have a tendency to pass down their math anxious behaviours to students, particularly affecting more girls than boys. Since the majority of the elementary teaching staff are women, it is possible that a cyclic pattern will arise where teachers will pass down math anxiety to students, and these students will grow up dealing with math anxiety.
As a current PhD candidate, I have taught elementary teacher candidates basic math knowledge. It was clear to me from the first day, math anxiety was very present within the students I had. Many of these teacher candidates had candidly revealed that they have not taken any math classes since Grade 11, which is the final grade in Ontario where math is mandatory. With Maple Learn, because manyof the documents are created by educators, these documents can function as learning materials which a teacher can use for extra practice and guidance.
One strategy to combat math anxiety in general is developing greater self-efficacy and confidence in their math skills. For example, using the Converting and Decimals to Fractions document, teachers and teacher candidates can use this as a tool to support their understanding and can help double-check their work. Unlike students, when learning about math concepts and skills in class, in addition to using online resources they also can ask teachers for help. Whereas for adult learning, it is possible that some may feel shy or embarrassed to seek help from others. On Maple Learn, there are multiple quizzes where a teacher can use as practice to further their understanding. In addition to the solution, these features also provide hints and a “check your work” button so that it can guide the teacher in solving such problems if stuck on a question. One of the cool features of these solutions is that they don’t just reveal the answer, but also include steps to solve the question whenever a teacher gets stuck.
Furthermore, additional visualizations could be a useful tool for visual learners and serve as another method to understand and solve such math problems rather than solely relying on algebra.
The documents provided in the example gallery provide multiple different methods on understanding and solving math problems. For example, when multiplying fractions, one can either simplify before multiplying the fractions together or they can first multiply the fractions, then simplify.
The more practice one does, the better they become at solving math problems, and if interested, Maple Learn has many quizzes that one can use to improve their math skills. For more fractions documents, check out this page here!
