The everlasting question for many students- how to be good at math. by Younghyeon

The everlasting question for many students- how to be good at math. by Younghyeon - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

Ever since I was in elementary school, I have invariably been bad at math. I always admired my peers who were able to absorb the concept quickly and apply it to solve problems. I often felt discouraged and even inferior sometimes because I always had to put much more effort into the subject. I didn’t realize why I never received a high score on math tests until I attended a private math academy in South Korea when I was 15years old. Although academies are very popular in South Korea, my mother always encouraged me to study on my own. Even though I agreed with her philosophy that relying on academies to get good grades was only a temporary solution, I finally decided that a bit of mathematical assistance will help boost my grade because I already had an autonomous and independent study habit.

At the academy, I took full advantage of the lessons and the materials I was given. The teaching method of the teacher especially stood out to me. I learned that just as in social studies, categorizing the mathematical concepts in an organized way is crucial. For example, if teachers emphasize when a certain formula is used, and why the other formulas cannot be used in a specific circumstance, this explanation will make studying for math a lot easier for students, and they will be able to apply them in problem solving much quickly. This is very important, because grouping the concepts under a certain criterion enables the students to know which certain formula has to be used when similar formulas are given for similar concepts. Therefore, studying the subtle difference in the concept deeper by grouping them appropriately is extremely beneficial. I found this method to be very helpful, because when it came to math, I was very slow in comprehending and I had to review the lessons on my own multiple times until I realized why different formulas couldn’t to be used to solve the problem.

Also, emphasizing the importance of practice will help the students be better at math. Just as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. While it is true that math is not a subject of systematic memorization, I found myself getting high scores when I acknowledged that I was adroit enough in the area to be able to write down all the formulas that are used without looking at them, because I had solved so many problems using the formulas. Math problems usually follow similar patterns. Although the wording of the questions may be different, everything is within the range of the same mathematical concept. In other words, there must not be a problem that a student didn't learn how to solve. Therefore, the more practice, the better one becomes at math. Thus, students should be able to immediately write down how they are going to solve the problem, because by then, it should already be familiar enough for the students to know how to solve as math problems use similar formulas.

Those two things are what I wish more teachers had taught me earlier. The emphasis on the difference of the formulas, and the importance of solving many similar problems. As a student who has always struggles in math, I hope I can encourage more math teachers to think from a bad math student’s perspective and use the methods I have elaborated above to foster the students.