Math apathy is living large in our math classrooms. It can be defined as a lack of interest or engagement in math. What causes math apathy and what does it look like in our classrooms? More importantly, how do we address it?
Math apathy can be caused by a variety of instances and happenings in the educational career of a student. Here are a few:
- Math tasks that have only one answer or one correct pathway to solve it (Closed Tasks)
- Example: Solve for x in the equation 2x = 12.
- Closed questioning from the teacher
- Example: What is the next step?
- Student is asked to work alone on difficult, challenging tasks
- Poor performance in a math classroom
- Struggling with math content
- Student compares their math performance with another student
- Example: Jack got a sticker on his test and I didn’t.
- Teacher compares a student’s performance with other students’ performance
- Example: “Those of you who are at green on the data wall are doing a great job!”
- Getting an answer wrong when questioned aloud in class
- Poor grades with no opportunity to continue to work towards mastery
It can be challenging to identify math apathy when it occurs in our classrooms. For some students there are obvious signs of disinterest or a lack of engagement, however some students mask their math apathy through other behaviors.
- Acting Out
- Students might exhibit behaviors such as disrupting class or causing other students to be distracted.
- Students might avoid bringing materials to class and thus seem ill-prepared. (missing homework, no device, dead device, no textbook, no pencil)
- Acting In
- Students might try to ‘hide’ in the classroom. (avoiding eye contact, never raising their hand, asking to go to the restroom, going to the nurse often)
- Students can make themselves invisible to the classroom teacher because they have math apathy.
Instead of addressing the underlying cause of the behaviors we often spend time and energy on the behavior itself. We address the disruption or student’s lack of focus instead of addressing the math apathy that is causing the unwanted behavior.
How do we combat Math Apathy?
For some answers to this question, let’s revisit our list of what can cause math apathy.
Closed Tasks
Task selection is one of the most important decisions you can make as a classroom teacher. We want to select tasks that open opportunities for students by encouraging multiple entry points, multiple strategies to solve, or more than one right answer. Simply by adding the statement “Justify your reasoning” we can encourage multiple solutions to a task. Here are some other ideas:
- Realistic and relevant
- Tasks need to ‘hook’ students in and engage their curiosity. We want to avoid tasks about ‘160 cantaloupes’ or ‘trains going east and west’. We want to provide students with tasks that relate to their world.
- Open vs. closed tasks
- We want to provide math tasks that allow students to use any strategy they choose to solve the task.
- Give students a task and say “Solve this anyway you can.” OR “Show me 2 ways to think about this task.”
- Great Tasks
- Here is where you can find some great tasks!
Closed Questions
For a whole collection of ideas on how to open up your questions check out this BLOG.
Lack of student collaboration
When students are asked to work independently on math tasks that are challenging or simply a challenge for them, they can shut down or act out. Why not invite students to work collaboratively on open math tasks to allow for students to garner ideas from their peers and share their thinking. Too frequently we show a few examples of a new concept then jump right into independent practice instead of allowing students to practice in a small group or with a partner. Exploration is a key component to learning math and without it we risk students forgetting what we have shown them. Allowing for student collaboration can minimize student mimicking as well.
These few tweaks to our instruction can make a major impact on students’ math apathy. Just choose one and get started!