Mathematics Teaching Using Journals
Writing Strategies That Improve Problem Solving and Concept Learning
Sep 11, 2009
Mathematics teaching involves the use of many strategies for helping students learn and develop an understanding of math. One teaching strategy is the use of journals, which allows students to shed light on their views and beliefs about math concepts through writing. Students can use these journals to communicate their thoughts, ideas, and understanding about mathematics. This strategy provides teachers with an indication of students understanding or misunderstanding of concepts.
Writing in math journals also provides an alternative mode of mathematics teaching and learning for those creative students who have not previously been reached by more traditional, structured, or linear teaching strategy. Because a student often knows more than he or she can or is willing to explain verbally, journal writing provides a safe venue for students to express what they know or do not know about specific math concepts or problem solving.
Journal Writing: Advantages for Learning Math
Journal writing strategies include the use of words, pictures, numbers, and manipulatives to express views and beliefs. As students write in their math journals they use verbal knowledge, mathematical knowledge, personal experience, and visual ideas to explain mathematical ideas in their own words.
In math journals, students articulate their personal learning strategies, which may contradict a teacher’s current teaching strategies. This leads to the following purposes and advantages of journal writing in math.
- Help students become aware of what they do and do not know.
- Connect prior knowledge with what the student is studying.
- Summarize the student's knowledge and give insight into understanding.
- Help the student raise questions about new ideas.
- Give the student a chance to reflect on what is known.
- Allow the student to construct mathematics for him or herself.
- Help the student keep his or her thoughts organized.
- Help address the issue of math anxiety.
- Support the interdisciplinary approach to education.
- Help the student make tentative ideas more permanent.
In most cases involving writing activities, especially when new, students need writing prompts to stimulate their writing activities. Journal writing prompts can take many different forms and purposes. Students respond best when the writing prompts are clear, approached in different ways, and open ended. The following math journal writing prompts address three specific attributes.
Attitudinal
- If math could be a color, shape, or sound; it would be… because…
- People use math to… because…
- People who are good at math are… because…
- Draw a picture of a mathematician and explain what he/she does… because…
- Draw a picture of a math monster and explain what it is doing… because…
- Design two bumper stickers to explain a math concept, one funny and one serious.
- Write a letter to another student who will be taking this math class next year and provide some advice.
Content
- The difference between… is… because…
- Explain how… connects with… because…
- Write and solve a word problem whose solution is…
- Find a short cut for…
- Compare and contrast the terms… and…
- Why can zero not be divided?
- How many dimensions does this journal have… why…
Process
- The most important part of solving a problem is… because…
- The important idea of today’s lesson was… because…
- How can journal writing be changed to be more effective… because…
- The most significant thing learned in class today was… because…
- Describe three ways to solve…
- Describe all the parts of a… graph.
- Write instructions for another student to solve…
Math Journal Tips
The following are tips for math journal use, combined with additional tips and teaching strategies increase the effectiveness of math journals.
- Allow students to decorate their math journals to make them more personal.
- Do not allow the journals to be taken out of the classroom to keep them from being lost.
- Develop a specific system for journal entries.
- Have students number or date entries to avoid wasting time writing prompts.
- Use a timer for journal entry writing periods, to ensure effective use of time.
- Establish clear and concise guidelines for correcting mistakes or rewrites.
- Collect, read, and evaluate of a regular basis.
Making Connections between Math Journals and Writing Strategies
Math journals combined with specific writing strategies in mathematics teaching becomes a learning tool for both students and their teachers. Students are provided with a method for keeping track of what they know or do not know, scrutinizing math concepts, expressing their understanding in many forms, and have a method for self-evaluation of strengths and weaknesses in math.
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