Overcomplicating Mathematics

            Throughout the third week of class, we focused on making two concepts in math become more visual to the students.  These two concepts can often be tricky to learn in math especially when it is taught using traditional schooling methods.  I believe like most subjects that math should not just be taught from the textbook.  Often times the textbook leaves out information that leads to poor understanding from the students.  Essentially, the textbooks often try to “make concepts easier” by using different language or situations but this usually results in confusion when students attempt to read the question.  Looking at the picture below, I am still very confused as to what the question is asking and this is from a grade 5 math textbook.  I was reading an article written by Gina Cassini found here http://toprightnews.com/priceless-student-sums-common-core-math-idiocy-single-word/ and I believe it truly sums up the downside to overcomplicating mathematics  Essentially, this style of learning has been put into place in many math textbooks to try and look at another approach of solving the problem.  This is a great idea in theory but it is not always a plausible method of looking at a problem.  I believe that something like arithmetic which is vital in mathematics should not be over complicated to the point of extreme confusion.  Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t be looking at mathematics (specifically arithmetic) through multiple perspectives.  I am saying that if one way at looking a problem makes you scratch your head 10 times over than perhaps that is not an effect way for students to learn.  This is why if you are trying to teach a lesson from a different perspective than the "norm" that it is important that this lesson is still clear to the students.  Often times this can be achieved by reading over your lesson plan to make sure it even makes sense as clearly whoever wrote this question must've not checked their plan. 

Source:  http://toprightnews.com/priceless-student-sums-common-core-math-idiocy-single-word/

                I believe that a solution to the textbooks is visualizing mathematics.  In class we used a variety of methods to visualize patterns and algebra.  Each student in the class made their own patterns and displayed a picture of it on the projector.  This allowed us to individually go through each of our pattern creations and work together to try and solve the recursive formula.  I believe that interact visual methods such as these are beneficial to improving learning as these combine student’s imagination with learning.  You would be quite surprised to see what some students might come up with in their pattern.  Moreover, we used algebra tiles that make learning the dreaded concept of “algebra” seem less threatening.  I similarly thought that using these was an interactive method that could be applied to a variety of problems including: factoring, completing the square, expanding binomials etc.  Overall, I am excited to see what we are going to learn next week in class as this class really makes me observe mathematics with a critical lens.