My Math Journey - a Beginning of Year Activity

During my graduate program, I did an action-research student over student perceptions of math anxiety; basically what led students to be anxious about math, and what they thought could help them overcome their math anxiety & gain more confidence in math. Not surprisingly, the most common answer was their math teacher! If they thought they had a good math teacher, and they thought their teacher believed in them and could help them, then in turn students thought they would do better in math.

This "My Math Journey" activity is an activity I have been using at the beginning of the school year for the last few years. It gives me so much insight to my students, and as a result I'm able to begin helping them build their math confidence. 

Students graph their math confidence from K-8 (5 is extremely confident in their math skills; 0 is I'm ok at math; -5 is extremely unconfident in math). Analyzing this graph from each student gives me so much valuable information. 

First of all, it does give me some info on their math skills right away! Do they know how to plot points? Can they read & interpret the axes appropriately? 

Second, it shows me how they perceive themselves in their math learning along with the follow up question, "explain the high and low points in your graph". Students will usually tell me what past teachers did or did not to that contributed to their math learning in a positive or negative way. I'm always sure to take note of these things (especially what worked!) so that I can best fit my students' needs. 

The next question I ask is "If there was one thing that would raise your math confidence going into next year, it would be knowing how to (or getting better at) _____." This is a great question because find out something you can help your students with right away to raise their math confidence! I think it is an especially important question this year, given the emergency remote learning that happened last Spring. We know that not all students received the proper math education, and this can give you some insights on what they might have missed. 

Small Groups are an important part of my in-person classroom, and I plan on utilizing them during virtual learning as well. This question would be a great starting point for small groups! Even over video conferencing, you could pull students to give them extra help on the topic they need more confidence in. 

The last question I ask is "If there’s one thing I want my math teacher to understand about me (can be math related or not), it’s that _____." Students know what they need in order to learn, and it can take a while for teachers to figure those things out. I love that you can gain some of that knowledge just by taking the time to ask them this question!

It is always important to get to know your students & develop positive relationships with them. Often in the classroom, those just happen naturally over time after spending everyday together, which is why I think one of the greatest concerns about distance learning is how to accomplish just that. It will be even more important to take time out during virtual teaching to get to know our students & for intentional relationship building. This "My Math Journey" is a great place to start! I converted it to a Google Slides Version, in addition to the printable version, so that it can be used in person and virtually. You can find it on my TpT store (for free!) or by clicking on the image below.