And other complaints you’ll hear while teaching math… I’ll never use this! And other complaints you’ll hear while teaching math…

Math is relevant “I wont ever use this outside of school!” Did you know that over 80% of professions use AT LEAST middle school math? 25% of those professions use high school math “I want to make lots of money when I grow up.” Did you know that an engineer makes about $115,000 a year? ..and you have to take math to be an engineer “Math is too confusing.” Did you know that Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison all struggled with math?? Imagine a world where they gave up just because something was hard.

Lots of Jobs Use Math Engineer Architect Scientist Professor Businessmen

“my job won’t use math, so I don’t need it.” Even if you don’t have a career that uses math daily, you will still use it Even stay-at-home parents perform these task. Paying bills Understanding your paychecks Balancing your checkbook Budgeting Grocery shopping Doing your taxes ALL THESE THINGS REQUIRE MATH

Their reaction when you ask if they understand the math lesson

Tips for getting students more involved in math Relate Math to the Real World When students can’t relate information to their lives they don’t care about it Showing real life value makes students more apt to pay attention Use Props Helps with variety of learning styles Including senses helps retain what is taught Find Problems With More Than One Way To Solve let students know that there are multiple ways to solve it Challenge them to find multiple ways

“I can’t even help my child with their Math Homework” Here are some helpful websites that make homework easy and fun: Khan Academy offers a growing library of high-quality educational videos that can help parents brush up on school subjects or guide their child through homework. https://www.khanacademy.org/ Study Geek offers detailed help on all math courses from PhD experts http://www.studygeek.org/ Fact Monster offers online math flashcards, references, conversion calculators, and more… https://www.factmonster.com/

It’s important to remember the basics when trying to help our children excel in math Identify all parts of the equation Identify Combine like terms Combine Use the steps involved in solving the particular type of problem you are working You can always look up the steps in solving various types of problems online if you aren’t familiar with them yourself Use Take the problem one step at a time Take Remember PEMDAS Remember Don’t overthink, if something seems like the next logical step then it probably is! Don’t overthink Always check your answers Check

Math problems use steps to be solved Please: stands for Parentheses Excuse: stands for Exponents My: stands for Multiplication Dear: stands for Division Aunt: stands for addition Sally: stands for subtraction PEMDAS is just one of many steps involved in solving mathematical equations

Top 10 Universities with great math programs in the U.S. Princeton University of Michigan Stanford Columbia University Harvard Berkely UCLA University of Minnesota MIT Texas A&M

math in field trips Architecture- teach how to estimate size of buildings you visit, compare the size of them to the tallest buildings in the world Sports- go to a game around your area, record scores, calculate batting averages or free throw percentages, or compare win/loss records, and then take the information and put them into graphs back at school. Factories- if you have access to a safe factory tour have your students record amounts of things they make (i.e. factory that makes ice cream, have students record amounts of ingredients and then relate that to amounts they would eat themselves) Museums- find museums that allow kids to touch and feel exhibits. Have them do a scavenger hunt for as many shapes as they can find. Have them record the shapes measurements so they can find their area once they get back to school.

References http://www.dreambox.com/blog/math-learning-field-trip-ideas-for-homeschoolers https://thebestschools.org/features/best-mathematics-programs-in-world-today/ https://www.familyeducation.com/school/top-10-free-homework-help-websites https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/5-tips-to-help-get- students-engaged-in-high-school-math/ http://mentalfloss.com/article/69251/6-famous-scientists-and-inventors-who- struggled-math https://www.livescience.com/29017-which-jobs-actually-use-math.html https://www.math.uh.edu/~tomforde/ConsideringMathMajor.html