Monday discussion 27th July

It's very easy to make me feel anxious (ask me to sing; ask me to dance; ask me to do a charade; ask me to say something 'intelligent' about the book I'm reading etc) so when maths, or anything, becomes a "performance" as Becky has suggested, anxiety is close behind. I'm a slightly autistic and aspy introvert, so I was born anxious, for goodness sake!

I decided a good while ago to accept that this anxiety was a normal state of affairs and to find workarounds. So it is going to be for my students. So, yes, I can try to make my maths classroom such that it minimises sources of anxiety but I also have to prepare Ss for a public examination where no such concessions will have been made. One thing I thought I could usefully do was show them that maths could make me anxious too, and so an important part of helping Ss with problem-solving skills was to model that for them. What's the point of telling them to "persevere", when they've never seen me do it? As such, I am happy to open unseen problems in class so that they can watch me wrestle with the problem, try various heuristics, retreat from the inevitable cul-de-sac etc.

Having said that, I'm always within my maths comfort zone topic-wise but if the problem is a good one (and the problem that I solve has to use maths the Ss know) then it could be very anxiety-generating because of the expectations upon me. However, I only do this when I've already built up mutual trust with that class. I'm visible with the pedagogy so they know that I'm trying to show them that it's normal to struggle and ok to not succeed or ok to partially succeed and ok to just find aspects of interest whilst looking for a solution. One of the key symptoms of my GCSE resit students in FE is that they will not attempt a question unless they can already work out the answer before they write anything.

Time pressure exacerbates my anxiety and impairs performance; but likewise it does if I'm expected to do, say, a crossword clue under time pressure. One of the reasons for me doing this course is to make some of my colleagues understand that far more of our students need to be given extra time in their assessments so time pressure as a single major driver of anxiety is mitigated as best we can.

I don't think I become procedural in my teaching, but then I'm well within the scope of my own maths fluency in what I'm teaching. Isn't it inevitable that if someone is teaching near the limits of their own maths confidence then a) they will have made fewer connections with other areas of maths so their teaching will be less rich and appear more procedural; b) they are at their limits so more likely to be anxious? So I guess I'm wondering whether a) and b) are two symptoms of something else rather than a consequence of one another.

I think students feel most anxious when everybody else seems to be confidently tackling something and they feel so much less capable. Time pressure can add to this.

I'm currently feeling very challenged by the time pressure information. Jo Boaler and others seem adamant that this can be the start of maths anxiety, yet every school that I have worked in has had weekly timed times tables tests & quick fire tables competitions. Craig Barton argues that without the time pressure, students aren't motivated to learn these which are useful for reducing the load on working memory. Whilst I understand that dyscalculic students struggle to learn times table facts, I think we need to encourage children to learn what they can. So the challenge is to find alternative methods to encourage them to learn these if we are going to drop the speed methods. Any ideas?

As I'm working with primary aged pupils and I studied maths to first year degree level, I'm usually reasonably confident about the tasks which the children have to do, although I do sometimes have the odd panic moment when it doesn't look like it's going to work out. It's been really useful to read about maths anxiety and realise that in those times it's probably a good moment to model that sometimes we do get in a muddle or a panic and use it as an opportunity to discuss - 'what to do when we get stuck'. I've tended to worry that I'll make the maths look more difficult or look stupid whereas Clare Lee and Sue Johnston-Wilder, in a chapter on building maths resilience, say that it's important for students to appreciate that maths can be difficult alongside having strategies for what to do when we get stuck, and having a growth mindset.

Hi Lina and Jenny
You have raised some great points there. I think the time issue is really key. Timed exercises are only motivating for pupils who can think quickly and recall facts easily. I suppose a compromise would be for children to try and improve on their won time taken rather than having a comparison with other children. In that way if they improve from taking 2 minutes to complete to 1minute 50 seconds they can feel a sense of achievement ( even if other children are completing in 30 seconds).
Many dyscalculia screeners have a timed element and although stressful for the children it is important that at the diagnostic stage we have an idea of how long it is taking the child to perform the basic operations. Two children can write 7 as the answer to 3+4 , but we need to know if it too 2 secs or 2 minutes to get there.

I totally agree about the way we talk about maths being a contributory factor in maths anxiety- we are probably all guilty of that to some extent!

Hi,
I feel particularly maths anxious when I feel I am working under time constraints and am being watched. I also think this affects the way I teach maths because I always use a calm approach and encourage students to take their time and will try to work with them, rather than just watch them work sums out. When I feel confident that they understand what to do, I will ask them if they would like to show me, which they usually do.

Becky