How can students boost self-
confidence in math?
What do students need to know and do in order to boost their math performance? Victoria Jasztal (2010) advises that students need to “practice positive self-talk.”
- Positive Self-talk: I can do it; I can solve it; Maths is meant for human-beings and not dogs
Instead of saying “I am not good at maths” say that “I can do this problem, I can solve it.” In addition to positive self-talk, students need to create and follow through with a scheduled plan and a to-do list. As Jasztal notes, “Make to-do lists, particularly in your school agenda or a notebook so you know if you are staying on top of things. It is very easy to forget to complete important things because we get caught up in other things.” Leo Babauta suggests that students need to go further than thinking positive: students need to put it in action. You are what you do, and so if you change what you do, you change what you are. Act in a positive way, take action instead of telling yourself you can’t, be positive. Talk to people in a positive way, put energy into your actions. You’ll soon start to notice a difference (Babauta, 2012).
Many articles with good recommendations on boosting your self-confidence in math are already posted online. However, I would like to provide some recommendations on how to overcome those things that hold students back from raising their self-confidence in math class.
Be desperate to solve some questions per day.
- Ask Question: Don't hide your feelings. Students should be more proactive, ask more questions, and keep good class notes for further review of the problems and solutions that were done in class. They should contact their professor and ask questions outside of class about mathematical concepts and problem solving strategies. They should study and practice, because by studying more, students will empower themselves with knowledge. And by becoming more knowledgeable, students will become more confident.
- Solve it; Love it;
- Do it yourself;
- Spend quality time on your own to study the concept of each topic & work the examples
Students should also set aside one hour to practice problems discussed during class. By practicing more, students will become better problem solvers and increase their competence about mathematic applications and solutions. Frequently, during in-class discussions, students encounter difficulty in understanding how the problems are solved. In these cases, students want to rely more on procedural steps rather than on understanding why they need to follow certain solution steps.
Conclusion
Sometimes math problems seem so hard, and student self-confidence is so low, that students start to complain about an instructor’s teaching style. To resolve this situation, I would like to suggest that students need to focus more on solutions instead of problems. By doing that, students will raise their confidence.
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