Mathematical Mindsets - Ch. 3

The Creativity and Beauty in Mathematics.
That's the title.
Seriously.
I am overjoyed that I am not the only one to see this.
Math is creative.
Math is beautiful.
Seeing the connections and how things "work out" is mind blowing.
If you don't believe me, come to my classroom sometime when a student moves MY thinking.
It. Is. Life. Changing!

This chapter starts out with why students hate or fear math.
1. It's taught in ways not used in other subjects.  It's thought of as a performance subject...that the goal of the class is to get the problems right.  One of my goals for this next year as we embrace the growth mindset will be to continue and enhance how to highlight the beauty of mathematics, the satisfaction of asking and answering deep questions, and ultimately to explore the rich connections that make up the entire curriculum!
2. The beliefs that are held about math that are not applied to the other subjects.

"At its core, mathematics is about patterns."

Wolfram (2010) proposes that math has four stages:
1. Pose a question
2. Go from real world to a mathematical model
3. Perform a calculation
4. Go from the model back to real world to see if the original question was answered.
I see lots of the mathematical practices in this list!

Right now, 80% of school mathematics is spent on stage 3.  This needs to change.  Using Dan Meyer's 3 Acts is a great way to start incorporating stages 1, 2, and 4.
Employers need people who can ask good questions, set up models, analyze results and interpret mathematical answers.

"Explaining your work is what, in mathematics, we call reasoning, and reasoning is central to the discipline of mathematics." Student presentations either in small groups or large group.
"Group and whole class discussions are really important." We call these math conversations.

Need to get rid of the misconceptions that math is...
...about rules and procedures,
...being good at math means being fast at math,
...about right and wrong answers,
...all about numbers.