How we Learn by: Christian Sporre

During the past few months, I have really started questioning myself about how I am learning information, especially in my math class. I am a pretty go with the flow kid, I get to class and I do everything that the teacher tells me to do and try not to question their methods, but sometimes I can’t help it. I am terrible at math and I am always trying to get better, but I don't even know where to start. Even now as I am writing this blog, if you asked me what I am learning in math I could not tell you. I know it involves some triangles and some radicals but that's about it. I go to school early almost every day because I am so confused on my math homework. I go to my math teachers classroom and pull out my homework to ask my questions. Every time I would ask a question I would get an answer and in my mind go “why didn't i think of that before” but the second I sit down in my chair to put that knowledge I have just acquired to work, I become confused again. I am not forgetting everything my teacher just told me, I just can put all the information together. I do not understand why the numbers work the way the do, yet I still have an A. To me that does not make sense, how could the class that I have the least understanding for have one of my highest grades. Then I realized why. I do not know how and why the numbers work with each other the way they do, I just know the formulas. All I have to do is remember the formulas to get the problems right, but the second I saw a problem with the numbers out of wack I have no Idea how to solve it. It just goes to further show that I do not really understand the problems I am supposed to be solving. If I can just understand the numbers and formulas instead of memorizing them, I could do so much better. Now I need to figure out how to gain the understanding of the math I am learning. Unfortunately math is always building on top of itself so I have started looking at the very base of the math I am learning. I know for a fact that a lot of students have this same problem in my math class because we are constantly asking each other the same questions. I think a great way to solve this problem and to let the students gain a little bit more of understanding of the topic, is a daily review of past problems. I am constantly faced with some types of products I haven't seen or worked on in a week. I think just a daily review would greatly benefit everyone in the class. I also am fortunate to have great friends who always help me out on the math that I do not understand and I think that it is from them I have gained the most understanding. One of my friends knows how I learn so he knows how to explain things to me, which really helps me understand certain topics I am supposed to learn. Now with me reviewing and with the help of my friends I am finally gaining an understanding for math. I think the future for my math grades is finally looking pretty good.