Why is math important? By now, it is obvious to see that computers are taking our jobs. In a few years, robots will take more than 15% of our current jobs. It teaches us about the importance of math. So why is math important? It’s not too complicated. We use math everyday. For example, we use math when crossing the road, cooking, telling the time, and many more.
It’s possible to live our lives with basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Moreover, computers can do more than simple arithmetic. Engineers created the technologies that are taking our jobs. Math is important because if we can’t do what computers can’t do, then we can kiss our jobs goodbye. We can fix it by learning higher math. Students must come together, and we must decide why math is important for our lives.
As college students, we’re expected to have mastered high school math standards. Moreover, some of us had mathematical difficulties in high school.
That’s not a problem because we’re teachable. Brain scan has shown us that the brain can be regrown. It can be regrown through games, food, reading etc. Some of us enrolled in degrees such as nursing, art, math, etc.
All of us in this degree are expected to take math. We all have different reasons for enrolling in math requirement courses, so there’s no need to drop our degrees. It is necessary to understand that everyone has trouble in math, and our teachers had problems in math.
Therefore, we can improve our weaknesses in math by knowing our technological aid, our educational background, and our classroom environments.
Firstly, technological aid are technologies that assist students to learn and help teachers to teach easier. This includes calculators, math multimedia programs, and electronic boards, etc. Mymathlab is a popular technological aid at our school. It’s excellent because it educates students both in class and at home.
It is a sufficient condition because it takes us through the hard problems and provides answers with suitable explanations. According to Abbas Johari, “inductive multimedia programs help students understand math better”. Mr. Johari expanded on a study of multimedia programs using graph and word problems to educate 98 undergraduate students of a large southwest college who were enrolled in a computer literacy course. The research was successful. Because by the end of the research, students showed high improvement in their grades.
The problem is that MyMathLab prevails in spatial learning than in kinesthetic (hands-on learning), auditory (Listening learning), and linguistic(language learning). However, some of us learn differently, and some of us abuse the program because we copy and paste answers. Some researchers believe that students’ performance in math depends on the mathematics curriculum.
According to John K Alsup and Mark J. Sprigler, the ” traditional method(Houghton-Mifflin) showed positive results than the reform method (Cord Applied). The traditional method is based on non-reality problems, but the reform method is based on real problems. It depends on the teachers who teach it. There were about 335 eighth-graders in western United State from different areas that participated in this research. They did it by comparing SAT results of students from both curriculums.
It makes sense because schools such as Harvard University, M.I.T, and UMUC use different math curriculums. Because if schools used the same math curriculum, it wouldn’t make sense to pay high tuition for Harvard. Instead, we can pay less for UMUC and achieve equivalent knowledge.
Mymathlab is part of our curriculum that is given to us by our schools. If we know the program isn’t sufficient, then we should tell the school board. We need to take responsibility for our failures and do better.
Secondly, Educational background refers to our family’s educational values, our learning styles, and our understanding of math. If we know our educational background, then it prepares us for our careers. It is not late to prepare our mindset. Because it reveals our strengths and our weaknesses in math, it gives us the opportunity to grow our weaknesses.
It is a necessary condition that helps us keep track of the lesson. If our parents have a high educational value, then they can help us in math. It helps us know our learning styles. It facilitates learning to the best of our understanding, and it will lead us to do better in math. Knowing all of this can exponentially increase our understanding and performance in mathematics.
Moreover, some of us are doing well without the knowledge of our educational background. So why does it matter? Some of us have tried it so many times and gave up on it. It is not surprising, math is hard. Some of us have math learning disabilities. The ability of low understanding in math. According to Emmanuel Manalo, Julie K. Bunnell, and Jennifer A. Stillman, “Students with math learning disabilities can improve highly through process mnemonics”.
They conducted a study with 13-14-year old’s, and they were distributed to various groups. Two Experiments were conducted to test Process mnemonics, no instruction, and demonstration imitation. They used different variables. Process mnemonics are using techniques such as rhymes to remember things. Demonstration imitation is the modeling of what you see.
We all know it’s a challenging subject. Some of us have come far without any knowledge of our educational background; If we attain it, then we’re guaranteed to improve our current educational values in math by 5%. Some of us with learning disabilities can improve. According to John Woodward, ” Strategies of teaching facts and extensive practice drills can help develop automaticity in math”.
This study was conducted on 58 fourth graders. Some with learning disabilities, and some with no disabilities. It proves that practice drills and strategies that teachers use to teach us can improve our math understanding.
For example, the speech teacher asked Brandon and his classmates if they knew their learning styles. Since Brandon knew his learning style because his DVR-0061 teacher taught him. He was among the students who knew what she was talking about. It shows how important learning styles are.
Thirdly, the classroom environment is an important aspect of the understanding. The classroom environment includes climate, teachers, and classmates. Climate is an important fact in understanding math. Because if students are not comfortable in their environment, then they will have a hard time perceiving and processing mathematical information.
For instance, if it is hot outside and a student goes to class. He/she will expect the classroom to be cold. If the temperature in the classroom is the same as the temperature outside, then the student will have a hard time learning. Sometimes, we fail to ask our teachers questions when we don’t understand. It’s important to have a teacher that cares about math.
If teachers don’t care, then students won’t care. We don’t take into consideration that our classmates can tutor us. At times, we understand better from classmates than from our teachers.
According to Karen J. Graham and Francis Fennell, ” Successful teaching depends on teachers’ ability to make decisions based on their knowledge of mathematics, the curriculum expectations, the classroom/ school environment, and the needs of the students”. Our teachers are part of our misunderstanding. If so, why are our teachers allowed to teach us?
Because teachers are meant to teach us depending on our understanding, they are supposed to boost our self-esteem and self-concept in math. Furthermore, teachers are also responsible for everything in the classroom. It implies that teachers need to fix the temperature if it doesn’t correlate with the students in the class.
Is it right to blame our teachers for our failures and misunderstanding? If we think about it as college students, it’s our responsibility to fix our classroom environmental issues. First, we must suggest our opinions with our teachers on class environmental changes. If our teachers can’t help, then we can dress depending on the classroom temperature.
If we don’t understand, then it’s our responsibility to go and find a tutor. For instance, our schools provide us with free tutoring for every subject available. It s up to us to carry ourselves there to learn.
Improvement in mathematical skills is possible through our technological aid, educational background, and classroom environments. Mathematics is important in many ways. First, it is the foundation of the world. Because currently, robots are already taking our jobs, no one will want to employ a person if a computer is faster and better than them. Plus, they don’t need to pay for a computer. Many majors we take today require math, and we need math in our daily lives.
Computers are structured using math, but their math skills are limited. Math is a hard subject, but we can understand it by managing our tech-aides, learning background, and environments. We need to take advantage of the resources around us. Especially us in community colleges because the world does not care about who does the job.
They only want people who can get the job done and fast. We must keep practicing until we understand. Therefore, we must not give up on math under any circumstances because we have dreams to conquer.
