Lone Star College
I finished this semester and my grades were A, B and C. An A in Mathematics for teachers, B in General Psychology and C in Statistics. The interesting part is I spent the most time on the statistics, the class I received the lowest grade and I spent the least amount of time on Mathematics for Teachers. Psychology was pretty straight forward, read the chapter, do the quiz, then do the unit test. As a student, it would be nice to get all A’s, but the most important part is what did I learn from the class.
What did I learn from my statistics class?
I learned that math or data is valuable. I rewatched the film, Moneyball, recently and using data and statistical analysis the Oakland Athletics were able to create wins by looking at baseball differently than the way previously viewed. This concept can be applied in many different aspects of the world. I learned how to gather data, read it, and see if it had any correlation with other variables/factors. I also learned how to create graphs, boxplots, histograms, and scatter plots with a programs called jupyter.
What did I learn in Psychology?
Like I said above, the class was straight forward. I would read the chapter, take the online quiz, then take the online unit test that would cover the last 3 chapters. There was a zoom class every week, but my zoom/webex wouldn’t work the last 4 weeks. It wasn’t a big problem. What I learned…? Psychology is an important part to life. blah, blah, blah. I don’t care about the entirety of the class. The most interesting part about it was the education part. How we learn skills? As a future educator, this part was fascinating. Learning about operant conditioning and classical conditioning concepts was very interesting. I teach kids jiu jitsu, so I can see when my students learn techniques they didn’t know before. I can also see them forget the techniques they learned before(extinction). Which is frustrating. I will look into these concepts for the future.
What did I learn in Mathematics for Teachers?
The most important thing I learned from this class was teaching math to younger students may not be as straight forward as people think. Here are some questions that are in my assignments. What concepts are in this problem? What problems or confusions do you think your student can have when undertaking this equation? How would you solve this? (Please keep in mind you may be teaching this to a K-8 student.) I never really thought about math this way, or even teaching. For example, 5x= 10. Obviously, x=2. First, is the concept of numbers, second the concept of multiplication/division, then the concept of x being variable for another number. Then I would have to think as if I never saw this before. To look through the eyes as a student again. This kind empathy is interesting because it is very difficult to forget that 2+2=4. This is just an example. I feel like this course is necessary for students that haven’t taken college math before.
In conclusion, I’m glad I finished this semester. I also learned a few things about the class.
Next Post- My Goals and what I’m reading
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