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Brian Eagan
EDUC7520
Professor Paul Madden
September 26, 2018

Mathematics Pedagogical Teaching Philosophy

Math education can be an emotional topic of discussion; many people have strong memories

of a very positive or very negative experience with the discipline. Pedagogical methods in math

can be rigid and incompatible with students’ strengths and cognitive levels. Conversely, many

teachers deliver content in a manner that is adaptable and applicable to real-world situations and

problems. Unfortunately, students tend to remember the bad experiences over the good.

Reflection on one’s own experiences with and beliefs about math education can help teachers to

adapt their methods in a manner that is more likely to support students’ mastery of the subject.

In my opinion, justice is equitable opportunity to obtain and apply experience important to

accessing social structures relevant to personal progress. Justice is creating environments that

allow individuals to learn about themselves and the world around them in a manner that

promotes development. Thus, justice by nature incorporates education, formalized or otherwise.

While my conceptualization of justice itself may seem to lend itself to inclusion, I see teaching

for justice as being most meaningful when done in a sociopolitical manner. I believe that

connecting math to real-world problems relevant to the lives of students and their futures can be

beneficial to all students, but especially to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or

have disabilities that may not otherwise be interested in academics. As a volunteer at an after-

school program for children of low socioeconomic status I saw firsthand that students were more

engaged with and successful in math when the coursework helped them work towards solving a
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problem that they could face. This is also relevant in my field of severe special education, where

functional academics are more common and teaching math from a sociopolitical standpoint may

be necessary to allow students to access the material in a meaningful way.

My own math education was primarily bag-of-tools, where instruction of basic skills preceded

connecting these skills in progressively more complex ways. An example of this is when I

learned two-step equations with fractions in middle school over the course of two weeks—the

first few lessons involved a review of operations with fractions, followed by a review of one-step

equations with and without fractions, then an introduction to two-step equations without

fractions finally leading into the introduction of two-step equations with fractions. For the final

lessons, students were told to “string together” the previous lessons and use those tools to solve

the problems. I believe that this type of teaching can be effective when done carefully, and serves

as the model for my own teaching. However, I would like to incorporate more dynamic problem-

solving techniques into my methods as I believe that type of instruction will also help students

engage in the material and be reinforced to master it, both with instruction and on their own.

I am a cognitivist; my beliefs about math instruction are especially in line with the ideas of

social construction and knowing as a process. Specifically, I believe that the acts of building on

prior knowledge and finding personally relevant meaning for material lend themselves to a deep

understanding of academic skills and material. The process of discovering how to do so can be a

generalizable process and creates an important foundation for other content areas. My aspirations

of teaching for sociopolitical justice and using dynamic problem-solving methods are based in

my belief that these ideals reflect cognitivist ideas and create ample opportunity for developing

math and critical thinking skills that set students up for success across various contexts.