Resources

Mathematics anxiety affects almost half of the learners in adult education classrooms. Fear interferes with the part of the brain needed for reasoning and problem-solving. Math anxiety can also affect teachers in ways that negatively affect students. In this presentation, participants learn how math anxiety affects learners and specific stratgegies to help ease and overcome these effects. Strategy 1: Make students aware of the physiological effects of math anxiety. Research shows that when someone is experiencing math anxiety there is a physiological effect similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Strategy 2: Change the learner’s mindset about their potential and teach math in a way that is open and free enough for them to learn and grow. Studies show that learners learn best when they are active learners, which can be encouraged with a growth mindset. Strategy 3: Promote ideas of mathematical freedom because students' feelings of loss of control can shut brain function. Refrain from tying self-esteem to success in math. Strategy 4: Encourage student authorship of processes and ideas. Give students multiple solution tasks, which opens up authorship and promotes ideas. That shifts the focus from a correct answer to what I think. Strategy 5: Create a positive learning environment by establishing positive norms in the classroom through things like validating mistakes. Stragtegy 6: Develop a memory bank of positive math experiences. Students may use pictures or write down experiences from class and deposit them into their bank. Students can look back at their positive experience to combat negative self-talk. Strategies that can help teachers overcome their math anxiety include:

1. Develop a growth mindset
2. Feel mathematical freedom
3. Share a sense of discover with their students. It’s ok if you don’t know all the answers.

Cynthia Bell's presentation begins at the 08:45 mark in the recording.

• Basic computer skills
• Internet
• Windows OS
• Mac OS
• Email
• Social media
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Information literacy

After creating a free login account, teachers can create and save course evaluations. Users select what kind of evaluation to conduct and the type of impact indicators to include (e.g., Attitudinal, Knowledge). Instructors can create their own questions or select from over 800 questions from a question bank. The assessments can be printed out or instructors can send students a link to take it online. Completed assessments are automatically scored and teachers can view the results online or download them as an Excel spreadsheet. Teachers can create as many evaluations as they like and each can be saved and accessed later.