(La Trobe University Primary Mathematics Method Competency Test: Question 34)

1. (La Trobe University Primary Mathematics Method Competency Test: Question 34) What is the value of 1-5 x (-2)?

2. My Struggle With Maths May Not Have Been a Lonely One: Bibliotherapy in a Teacher Education Number Theory Unit, Sue Wilson (2007). Juliette Filanowski, Fleur Kilpatrick, Yasmin Mahdi, Nimisha Gupta and Angelina Massey.

3. Key Features of Anxiety • Anxiety is a state characterized by feelings that we typically recognize as fear, apprehension, or worry. • Physically: heart palpitations, chills, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, pale skin or headache, sweating or trembling. The body prepares the organism to deal with threat.

4. Anxiety • Cognitively: an expectation of a diffuse and uncertain danger. • Emotionally, anxiety causes a sense of dread or panic. • Behaviorally, both voluntary and involuntary behaviors may arise directed at escaping or avoiding the source of anxiety

5. Summary • The article researches the impact of using the technique of bibliography to help pre-service teachers deal with their maths anxiety. By using literature based on school student’s feelings and experiences about maths it helps them to better understand their student’s feelings of anxiety in regards to maths and give them some insight into helping them overcome their fears by connecting both teacher and student to relate to each other in their anxiety with maths. • The techniques of bibliotherapy used in this research were designed to help pre-service teachers get in touch with their strong feelings or tensions towards maths, as well as encouraging them to reflect more coherently on their beliefs about being learners of and teachers of maths.

6. Statements about Maths • When I look at a math problem, my mind goes completely blank. I feel stupid, and I can’t remember how to do even the simplest things. • I've hated math ever since I was nine years old, when I was grounded me for a week because I couldn’t learn my multiplication tables. • In math there’s always one right answer, and if you can’t find it you've failed. That makes me crazy. • Math exams terrify me. My palms get sweaty, I breathe too fast, and often I can't even make my eyes focus on the paper. It’s worse if I look around, because I’d see everybody else working, and know that I’m the only one who can’t do it. • I've never been successful in any math class I've ever taken. I never understand what the teacher is saying, so my mind just wanders. • Some people can do math – not me! Source: http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/anxiety/

7. Stages of Bibliotherapy • Identification - Reflections that indicate the participants have identified with the student’s in the literature in some way. • Catharsis - Statements that indicate the participants have became emotionally involved in the content of the articles and then subsequently released the pent-up emotion. • Insight - The participants indicate they have gained a different perspective through their readings and discussion of the experiences of others, as well as being more aware how their own problems might also be addressed.

8. Stages of Bibliotherapy • Universalisation – Reflecting on the readings and sharing their experiences enabled the participants to connect with each other and find that others have the same issues, feelings and experiences and that they are not alone. • Projection – Indications that the participants have questioned views they had developed of themselves as learners of mathematics as well, as the image that they had previously held of themselves as teachers of mathematics and how these reflections and insights led them to think about how it would impact on their teaching in the future.

9. Calculator Annie No matter how hard Annie tries, she just cannot do even the simplest sums. Until one day, that is, when she goes to sleep with a calculator under her pillow, and a strange thing happens. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Great Britain (2006).

10. Methodology • Qualitative study conducted on 11 pre-service students that were part of a mathematics elective subject. • Students initially asked to describe a critical incident in school mathematics education that impacted on their image of themselves as learners of maths. • Secondly each student was asked to read 8 articles and write guided reflections on each. Students wrote two in-class reflections, discussing the readings and their personal observations from school.

11. Findings • This is a qualitative study therefore the results are based on subjective responses from participants • 7 of the 11 participants reported positive experiences of maths. The reflections illustrated that the participants felt that the nature of maths was built on remembered procedures.

12. Findings • The in-class journal entries demonstrated some of the students had shown an emotional response to readings and had reflected on their own experiences and engaged in the stages of bibliotherapy. Some examples of statements participants’ made are: • “I have struggled with maths anxiety without being aware that I had it” (identification) • “Can anyone blame a girl for wanting to stick to what they feel they can cope with – rather than risking the humiliation of tackling the unknown connections between big ideas” (catharsis). • “I had never heard of maths anxiety prior to this. It pieced many pieces together in this puzzle of mine” and "The teacher hadn’t explained in the class in a way that I understood, or was relevant to me”. (insight). • “I can see evidence of ‘maths anxiety’ every time I tell someone I am doing a subject called number theory” (universalisation). • “Reading about maths anxiety made me reflect on my own experiences as a child. It also made me think towards the future” (projection).

13. Limitations of Study • Selection of participants. • Number of participants.

14. Maths books for kids! • The hungry caterpillar

15. Conclusion • Bibliotherapy is a technique that helps pre-service teachers deal with their maths anxiety by allowing them to release their strong feelings or tensions towards math, which in turn helps them to reflect on their beliefs about math and teaching. • Bibliotherapy connects both the teacher and student to relate to each other in their anxiety with math and it helps both of them overcome their fears of math. • Reading articles related to math anxiety helps pre-service teachers investigate how they may use different ideas and techniques to overcome their own problems and by learning to deal with situation they can become better teachers.