Reducing Math Anxiety Through Technology

Research supports the premise that elementary preservice as
well as inservice teachers suffer from mathematics anxiety.
Because of this, they have a tendency not to vary from
prescribed textbook activities and directions, or spend
appropriate instructional time with mathematics in comparison
to other subject areas.  Many explanations for math anxiety
have been put forth by several authors.  Among these,
rationalizations include a poor understanding of mathematics
concepts, poor performance in the past, or test-based anxiety.
Whatever the reason, teachers are clearly more anxious about
deviating from mathematics textbooks than those in other
subject areas.  

In order to overcome the reluctance of teachers to become more
individualized in their instructional procedures, the IBM
Teacher Faculty Computer Lab was used to help preservice and
inservice teachers develop individualized student arithmetic
modules.  These modules included a task analysis of operations
including, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,
with whole numbers as well as decimal fractions. The modules
included applications of the algorithms within everyday problem
solving situations.

During an intensive three week session, the teachers learned to
diagnose students' developmental understandings and needs, plan
appropriate manipulative experiences, follow up with suitable
computer algorithmic transition activities, develop alternative
algorithms when the need arose, and check for both
reasonableness and accuracy.  The process enabled these
teachers to see the "big picture" of an arithmetic operation,
in order to plan appropriately when considering manipulative,
transitional, and checking procedures.

Instructional Components

1.  Manipulative- The teacher and student use concrete
    materials which enable the learner to apply the appropriate
    action on objects.

2.  Transition Activities- Exercises allow students the
    opportunity to get a childUs eye view of how manipulating
    objects relates to paper and pencil practice.  These
    transition activities consist mostly of computer software
    applications ofthe IBM elementary materials in a systematic
    manner, tied directly to appropriate pre-identified
    hierarchical tasks.

3.  Alternative Algorithm- Appropriate, alternative algorithmic
    activities are developed in order to allow students to use
    alternative procedures to solve problems.

4.  Checking for Reasonableness and Accuracy- An additional
    built-in component within each hierarchical step is a
    checking procedure for reasonableness and accuracy.  These
    procedures allow use of alternative computation to validate
    the initial computation in a manner which is not
    algorithmically repetitive.

Each teacher-made instructional module was available to all
members of the project on computer disk and teachers had the
opportunity to organize the module packages in a suitable
manner using the most appropriate strategy for the grade level
in question.  At the end of the three weeks, each teacher had a
K-6 curriculum package which allowed for an individualized
instruction in mathematics for students having difficulties
learning a particular task within a hierarchy of skills.

It is important to emphasize that these individual procedural
algorithmic steps were not taught in isolation, but within a
context of overall understanding which involved appropriate
teacher language, relevant problem solving, and connections
between and among operations on whole numbers and decimal
fractions.

For more information, contact: 
John Piel or John Gretes 
College of Education and Allied Professions
The University of North Carolina-Charlotte
Charlotte, NC  28223
704-547-4500
.