Math Anxiety Disorder
Week one Discussion question 1
Pretend you are a specialist in math anxiety disorder and you have a group of students who have signed up for therapy because they start a class in one week and have not taken math in 10 years! Based on your previous experience with studying mathematics, give the students some suggestions for ways to reduce math anxiety. Include examples that work for you or for others. Post a reply to this message detailing your ideas. After posting your ideas, take a moment to read and comment on the ideas posted by some of your classmates. The advice that I would provide students who have math anxiety is to relax and take it one step at a time. Math is not something that requires you to pull ideas out of thin air.
There is a formula and rule to suit every math problem. Once you learn the formula, the rest is down hill from there. As long as you follow the formula provided, correctly, you can understand the problem. Also, I would recommend practicing a few problems everyday. This will help keep your skills sharp. And lastly, I would advise the student not to become overwhelmed by the idea of math. People just freak out when they think of having to do math, but in some ways, math is one of the easier subjects. Once you have the formula in front of you, it’s just a matter or plugging in the numbers provided into the formula, and working from there. Some strategies that have worked for me in the past are picking problems that have the answer in the back of the textbook. This allows me to practice a type of problem and verify whether or not I am on the right track. Also, seeking help as soon as you get lost or confused helps to alleviate unnecessary frustration caused by misunderstanding the course work.
Pretend you are a specialist in math anxiety disorder and you have a group of students who have signed up for therapy because they start a class in one week and have not taken math in 10 years! Based on your previous experience with studying mathematics, give the students some suggestions for ways to reduce math anxiety. Include examples that work for you or for others. Post a reply to this message detailing your ideas. After posting your ideas, take a moment to read and comment on the ideas posted by some of your classmates. The advice that I would provide students who have math anxiety is to relax and take it one step at a time. Math is not something that requires you to pull ideas out of thin air.
There is a formula and rule to suit every math problem. Once you learn the formula, the rest is down hill from there. As long as you follow the formula provided, correctly, you can understand the problem. Also, I would recommend practicing a few problems everyday. This will help keep your skills sharp. And lastly, I would advise the student not to become overwhelmed by the idea of math. People just freak out when they think of having to do math, but in some ways, math is one of the easier subjects. Once you have the formula in front of you, it’s just a matter or plugging in the numbers provided into the formula, and working from there. Some strategies that have worked for me in the past are picking problems that have the answer in the back of the textbook. This allows me to practice a type of problem and verify whether or not I am on the right track. Also, seeking help as soon as you get lost or confused helps to alleviate unnecessary frustration caused by misunderstanding the course work.