This chapter was different from the previous ones as they
discussed ways to effectively use a textbook rather than why textbooks are not
that great. As a future math teacher, I’ve felt slightly pushed to the side in
this book. Math textbooks are a different animal from science and history and,
while many of the strategies could be applied to a math text, many of them
would take a lot of adjusting to be helpful and appropriate for a math
classroom. When I saw the heading “Math textbooks are different,” I immediately
thought, “You got that right.” The gray box on pages 188 and 189 finally tapped
into the slight frustration I’ve been experiencing throughout this book. While
the science side of me appreciates all the strategies and activities that the
book has given, the math side feels slighted. Math texts are difficult, and
that is the premise of the issue. Much of the text is devoted to example
problems and step-by-step instructions as to how go about solving a problem. At
first thought, how would you get students to do a “Dramatic Role Play” for the
surface area formulas? Nothing that could be easily prepared for comes to mind.
Even though many of the strategies aren’t immediately easy
to adapt for math, you have the freedom to bend the examples to fit your end
goal. The “Checking Out the Textbook” activity would be incredibly useful in
math, especially since the texts are stuffed to the brim with content. I
remember being overwhelmed by everything in my math textbooks in high school,
and having a teacher take time to help me explore the book and understand its
features would have helped calm my fears. I’m not intending to say that none of
the strategies are useful for math teachers. I’m simply arguing that in order
for the strategies to be effective in a math classroom, the teacher would need
to be creative and flexible with the application of the strategy to best fit
their students and subject.
Maddie,
ReplyDeleteI am so with you. Reading your blog makes me wonder why I didn’t write on the same topic… With every reading strategy that has been covered so far, I envision it working really well in a classroom, but I never picture it being my (math) classroom. This is an interesting thing to start thinking about: How can we alter these strategies to fit with math texts, rather than just writing them off as “not applicable?”
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Hi Maddie. I can think of some ways you could use dramatic role play in a math classroom. For example, could you use it for fractions and proportions? I do agree, though, that it requires a bit more creativity on the teacher's part to come up with effective ways to use dramatic role play in math. Thanks!
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