Dominque Silva: I'm Dominique Silva, I am a senior here at Chico State, as well as a tutor in the SLC, I tutor math up to trig, I've been here, this now my fourth semester, I'm graduating finally in May. I went through the whole Butte thing, I transferred, now long story short I'm graduating from Chico State with a degree in social science. So anyway how many of you guys actually suffer from math anxiety? Or I know some of you guys are getting extra credit for this, some of you have to do it for EOP, but does anybody actually feel some type of way about math? None of you? Oh okay thank you, okay good, okay good. So you guys know you signed up for math anxiety course, like I said I'm the presenter, Dominique Silva, and here we go.
Dominque Silva: So basically our objectives, we're going to identify what exactly math anxiety is, we're going to better understand what causes math anxiety, we're going to discuss other settings that math is required outside of the classroom, explore resources that can assist you in math, and come up with ways to prevent and kind of ease math anxiety in general.
Dominque Silva: So seeing a problem like this, do you guys see it?
Dominque Silva: How does that make you feel? Especially for those who have math anxiety, and I want you guys to write it down for me, actually. So I'll go back to the picture.
Dominque Silva: Like just your thoughts of this, and I'll give you like two minutes. Ok it looks like mostly everybody stopped writing, so okay we will keep going.
Dominque Silva: Ok, so what are some feelings, that you guys said, you can raise your hand or just shout it out, it doesn't matter. Audience: Overwhelmed. Dominque Silva: Okay overwhelmed, is it with a w h or with no h? With the h or no? Audience Member: Yeah with the h. Dominque Silva: Okay yeah I'm not an English person okay, definitely math. Okay now let me have another one. Audience Member: Frustrated. Dominque Silva: Okay good one, frustration. Okay somebody else. Nobody? Common guys, a lot of you guys wrote stuff down. What about confusion? Audience Member: Puzzled. Dominque Silva: Huh? Oh puzzled, that's a form of confusion. Audience: Stressed.
Dominque Silva: Okay good. Anything else? Okay. Does anybody feel like this?
Dominque Silva: Okay. Okay.
Dominque Silva: Okay so here are some possible feelings, uneasiness, tension, avoidance, some students may feel faints, they can have a sense of dread, panic, ability to perform, sweaty palms, nauseous, stomachache, or just start talking to themselves in a negative manner, or like just keep feeding themselves negative thoughts in general you know.
Dominque Silva: A lot of times something like this is super simple to understand. One plus one is two okay whatever, but as soon as you start seeing numbers mixed with letters and equal signs and all this other stuff, then it has you feeling like this, the confusion, being puzzled, like all that stuff starts to factor in you know.
Dominque Silva: So math anxiety in general is an intense, emotional feeling that comes about whatever anything that involves math is approached or thought about. So what are some examples that you guys can say, other than a math class. You guys have to interact with me. Audience Member: Philosophy. Dominque Silva: Philosophy, okay good. So basically math anxiety, it starts off emotionally but later on it interferes with your intellect and it makes it difficult to even learn math because you have so many of these feelings stuck in your head that you can concentrate on the concepts of the math teachers try to give you, or trying to teach to you.
Dominque Silva: So possible moments outside of a classroom setting that may cause math anxiety, that's totally not in the classroom, other than the philosophy class she just said? No examples? Yes. Audience: I guess outside of a classroom environment there is still going to be math. Does that relate to that? Dominque Silva: Yeah, exactly. Audience Member: It personally sometimes gets on my nerves a little bit, so I don't really understand. Dominque Silva: So what would be some types of examples? Audience Member: Let s see, I think, well I guess an example now is you know freshmen looking for rent, talking about prices, trying to divide you know things. Dominque Silva: Good, good. Deposits, all the extra you guys are splitting, every bill you have to make sure that the person that is in charge of that certain bill is not going to screw you over. So you want to make sure okay your portion is the right portion of the bill that you have to pay and is not more than somebody else's has to pay you know what I mean, so stuff like that can be.
stressful you know and that's outside a classroom. What about examples like, let me.
Dominque Silva: This one. Paying/calculating the bill at a restaurant, that has a lot to do with math, calculating a discount, you may go to the mall, oh these shoes are 20% off of $50 so you have to figure out in your head or break your calculator, I break my calculator all the time, okay 20% of this is how much, so really my discount is that you know, or is this one a better deal that's 30% off but the shoes cost $70 you know what I mean. So all this type of stuff, grocery shopping, balancing your checkbook, taking measurements, if your landscaper, if you cook, like stuff like that, all that stuff has to do with math that is outside of what your teacher is conducting in the classroom you know what I mean.
Dominque Silva: So causes of math anxiety, possibly you had a bad experience, a lot of times it can be with the teacher, teacher put you on the spot, or and you give a wrong answer, students are laughing at you, stuff like that, instantly you can shut down and not want to approach math at all. Embarrassing moments, being unprepared in general for class, a lot of times stuff comes up, students are costly absent so they're super behind which falls under being unprepared, that can cause math anxiety. Parental pressures, I was doing some research on, and something came up with a parent telling their child it's hereditary, like you're supposed to know how to do math, so then you have all that parental stress on you, like okay I have to know how to do this because it's in my blood, I need to know how do it you know what I mean. Constantly doubting your ability, once you've gone through stuff like this, just looking at like that problem I put up at the board, looking at something like that, off top how many of you felt "I can't do that, there's no way I could do that", how many of you felt like that? Instantly you doubted yourself without even knowing "Okay well maybe if I was taught the approach I would know somewhat of what to do", you know how to add and subtract you know what I mean, so stuff like that. The biggest one for me in general, the cause for math anxiety is the lack of confidence that you have in yourself. A lot of times people can do anything they want to do in life if they apply themselves to it, but once you look at something your like "No I can't do it", it is over, you're not going to be able to achieve it because you already doubted yourself, in general.
Dominque Silva: So here's a small stat, it's estimated by an expert that said, Kaplan University I believe, said that 20% to 25% of all college students exhibit some form of math anxiety, so the ones that do have math anxiety, you guys are not alone at all. And I've had students that will sit with me, they know every material that I'm quizzing them on, soon as they take a test they start to get all these emotions, they flunk the test, just doubting themselves, they have a lack of confidence, or I'll have a student that has the answer at the tip of their tongue and I know they're about to say it but they're second-guessing it and they won't say the answer, and then once they second-guess themselves they will tell me the wrong answer, and that makes me mad because I know for a fact you know how to do this because you've showed it to me you know.
Dominque Silva: So Chico State has...
Dominque Silva: Khan Academy, have any of you guys heard of Khan Academy before? Yes, it's a good source.
Dominque Silva: So okay here we go. ** See Video** 9:52-14:58 Dominque Silva: You guys understand that? Let me turn the lights back on. Okay so basically like I was saying before this website just breaks everything down to you and with this search thing up here, where was it?
Dominque Silva: Up here, just put anything, the topic of the assignment you guys are working on and it will bring it up.
Dominque Silva: Okay so now I'm going to talk about ways to ease, prevent, and to cure math anxiety and testing in general. Okay so like I said a big thing that I see is a lack of confidence for students and then remember I said like the negative talk and all that. So for me the first thing you should have to do is to have a positive attitude, you can't go into anything in life whether it is math, history, nursing, anything you do with a negative attitude because you're not, your full potential is not going to come out if you're being negative right off the bat. You need to build your confidence in whatever you're doing, you must understand the concept before you do anything when it comes to math in order for you to understand the concept break down the problem, seek help, stay in your teachers face, my mom used to tell me all the time because she was a student while she was raising me and my sisters, constantly stay in your teacher's face, if your teacher knows that you're trying they will give you that little extra point that's going to push you over to go ahead and pass, like anything, I have a student now he is not doing okay in his class at all because he just realized that he skipped the middle math course that he was supposed to take before the math course that he is in right now, for some reason he guessed very well on the placement test and he tested out of the math class he was supposed to take, but his teacher has seen him constantly come to class whether he is confused or not he's taking notes, he comes to see me five times out of the week and I go over everything with him, he constantly goes to his teacher in his office hours, the teacher kinda told him without really telling him "So long as you continue to do everything you are doing I'm going to give
you the C so you can be done with my class", because he's putting forth the effort, he's costly in his teacher's face, so his teacher knows, and he explained to him too that he later found out, he just found out like last week that he skipped a class before, so because he's been actively in the teacher face like constantly showing up, doing everything he is supposed to do, as a good student the teacher is going to make sure he passes the class. Change your study habits, start rewriting your notes, ask yourself why is this important so kind of get like the perspective of it, relate it to something that's in real life, with negative and positive numbers I've always told my students especially my older students, think about your money in the bank if you overdraw $20 out of your account your -20 if you put 10 back in your adding a positive ten to the -20 that you initially had, now your $-10 because you fixed $10 of it that was in your bank you know, so just relate it to anything in life that's outside the classroom basically.
Dominque Silva: Do some sort of like meditation, I'm going to show you guys this video of this guy, he does this like this breathing meditation as he is actually doing a math anxiety workshop too. And then another thing is sucking candy, you guys know babies put pacifiers in their mouth to calm them down from crying, you go get a bottle soon as they start sucking on something it eases their nerves. I learned in one of my child development classes that we have some nerve that's connected to our jaw and our emotions, I can't really explain it the way I am supposed to, but sucking calms you down because your jaw is like connected to some emotional thing in your brain you know, so sucking candy while you're taking a test relaxes you you know. Okay let's look at this video. You guys can do it with him. **See Video** 18:59-24:30 Dominque Silva: So that was kind of helpful, yeah, no, yeah, no. Okay
Dominque Silva: Okay, so basically a recap. Do you guys feel like we did identify what exactly math anxiety was? Yes, no, okay. Do you have a better understanding of what causes math anxiety? Good. We discussed other settings math is required outside of the classroom? Yes. And we explored resources that can assist you in math and we also came up with ways that we could prevent ease and cure math anxiety. So the sheets of paper that you guys wrote all your confusion and all that other stuff, can you guys take that out. So especially for those, yeah? Okay its fine, well you can just watch I guess. So especially for those that actually did have math anxiety, so for everybody that wrote something that was negative on their piece of paper that involved any of these terms, any of the ones that I put up, rip the paper, just rip it real life just rip it, because in anything you do you cannot go into it being negative like that, and I'm to give you this paper, so this one is the reminder paper of the easing, the preventing, and the curing of math anxiety, you kind of get my whole little analogy thing I'm trying to do. So kind of discard negative thoughts basically, and replace them with positive ones.
Dominque Silva: That's it. Thank you guys so much for coming, thank you, thank you, thank you.