Students Learning Math

Students Learning Math. For many students, math is a subject to be feared. Many students admit that math is one of their weak subjects, but research has shown that students learn math best when they are able to work problems that they enjoy.

Students learn math best the way they learn other subjects best, when they approach the subject as something they enjoy. Pressure from timed tests and simple memorization create stress and fear around the subject and hinder students’ learning rather than help it.

In fact, time pressure seems to be part of many students’ problem with math. They fall into the mindset that the strongest math students are the ones who are the fastest to complete math problems. Fortunately, many educators are moving away from pure memorization of math facts. These are simply fundamental assumptions about math. The most common of these which most students will recognize is multiplication tables. And many students remember the stress of the timed multiplication tables tests where students are given a set amount of time to complete a lot of simple multiplication problems. But these stress inducing practices are still commonplace in many schools and households in the United States.

While these so-called math facts are important, timed tests and speed pressure are not the best ways to develop these and can be damaging. Instead the best way to memorize these is to have students use them over and over again, so much so that they become ingrained.

This method also gives students ‘number sense’ which enables them to use their knowledge of numbers in different circumstances rather than memorizing facts independently. Students who are taught purely by memorization do not develop this skill that is essential to all higher math.

Many students who are slow at memorizing, but have exceptional math potential turn away from the subject when the focus is too heavy on memorization. Just because they are slow to memorize facts does not mean that they are bad at math or simply not as smart. In studies, the ability to memorize facts is not linked to higher performance on tests, but understanding the material is.

Math fluency is described as being able to understand the numbers and what a student is doing with them. This is similar to how an English student understands a novel or poem in the broader context. Some of the most distinguished mathematicians are some of the slowest at simple recall, and a student’s expectation, that they must be able to recall math facts fast, is hindering their development.

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