1. What do we know about today’s math students?
 Lack of initiative.
 They don’t want to be there.
 Lack of perseverance.
 They feel forced by society and
law.
 They lack retention.
 Aversion to word problems.
 Eagerness for formula.
 Impatience for irresolution.
 Looking for the easy way out.
 Feel threatened

2. We will retire in a world our students will run.

Students have many bad habits of trying to
find a quick way to get the answer instead of
learning the concept.

We are teaching to find the answers and not to
become problem solvers.

3. “The formulation of a problem is often more essential
than its solution, which may be merely a matter of
mathematical or experimental skill”
- Albert Einstein
“Give a man a fish - he eats for a day
Teach a man how to fish - he eats for a lifetime.”
We need to teach students how to become problem solvers

4. Math class needs a:
Makeover

5. How do change our bad habits?
• Use multimedia - Bring the world to
the classroom, create new ways to
learn concepts.
• Encourage student intuition
• Ask the shortest question you can
• Let students build the problem
• Be less helpful

6. It’s by doing that little “extra” that makes an
ordinary teacher become an extraordinary
teacher.
 Answers are essential but only part of the
process, just like wrong answers are.
Sometimes we can learn more from what a
student is doing wrong than what they are
doing right. PAY ATTENTION!
 Teach them math they already know, it
becomes more reliable to them.
 Make sense of the mathematics you can
learn from working the problem.

7. We need to develop more
patient, problem solving
students.
• As teachers our job is not to
transfer data to the students.
• Our job is to inspire learning!!