Mathematical Difficulties

Difficulties encountered in Mathematics


In my experience in schooling, one of the main subjects that students have their hard time dealing with is mathematics and I wonder why. Maybe because they don't want computing number and most specially memorizing formulas,concepts and principles. Mathematics is the subject that I like because I learned many things and maybe I've got this knowledge on numbers through my father I think. Sometimes, I found difficulties too in dealing with it specially if I don't really understand the lessons delivered by the teachers. As a matter of fact, mathematics is very interesting to deal with but questions were formulated in my mind.

Why do students find mathematics as a difficult subject? What are the things that makes it hard for them? What are the problems and struggles that frequently encountered by the students? Who's fault is it? Did students do their best or they just listen and after that the knowledge learned was gone? All these questions come up into my mind when I see some students struggling and hating this subjects. But I think its their choice if they don't want to learn then fine however, they have nothing to do with it because its a part of the curriculum in our studies.

Dealing with mathematics is really hard for us because it is more difficult compared to some subjects. These mathematical difficulties are just challenges for us in order to measure our ability in dealing with numbers and in order to know what should be done to overcome it. As I research I found out some mathematical difficulties encountered by students. I have read this article in relation to these difficulties in mathematics in this site http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/mathdiffs.html. In this article, difficulties with mathematics were stated and these are:

• What Can Stand in the Way of a Student's Mathematical Development?
• Incomplete Mastery of Number Facts
• Computational Weakness
• Difficulty Transferring Knowledge
• Making Connections
• Incomplete Understanding of the Language of Math
• Difficulty Comprehending the Visual and Spatial Aspects and Perceptual Difficulties.

These things were really encountered by the students in mathematics. Specially in computations, most of the students don't want to figure out how an equation was being solved because they become lazy and they just asks the answers to their classmate who gives effort in order to answer or solve the equation prior to the problem. Students also are confused on the correct sign to be used on their final answers and it is one of the errors that students do not easily notice. Students also relies to calculators and they don't use manual methods in computation that's why when they were asked to compute without using calculators,they do not know the procedures and that's common to many. Another problem is that, students are not used on reading books because they prefer more on playing computer games and they don't listen to what the teacher is discussing.

Students also encountered conceptual difficulties with measurements,computation symbols and volume because some of the formulas related to these are complicated. Students with disabilities have difficulties also in the development of their skills in mathematics.Many students with learning disabilities have reading difficulties that interfere with their ability to solve word problems. The fear of failure and low self-esteem cause students to become so tense that their ability to solve problems and to learn or apply math concepts is impaired. Confused thinking, disorganization, avoidance behavior and math phobia are common results. Math symbols become very important in math achievement because it represents a way to express numerical language concepts, language skills.

Despite of these, teachers finds it difficult to deal with students because many were not interested in this subject. This difficulties are encountered by most students and I could say that this is their fault because if they only focus more understanding this subject, it could be more easy for them to get rid of it and I'm sure that they could have enjoyed it. The reason for these is that students are distracted of the things like new gadgets, internet,games,and most specially relationships because these things influenced students so they don't focus more on studying instead they are addicted to these things.

In order to overcome these difficulties, students must focus more on their studies specially in mathematics because it is very essential in our workplace. Having difficulties to this subjects is just normal because these are only challenges to us in order to understand more the world of numbers. We must gain more knowledge and we should get rid of these difficulties in order that our life would simple yet easy. "In every problems, there are solutions but remember to choose what is the best."    

Reference are articles used and opinions of my own.. This site is the one that I've used for some important points.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/mathdiffs.html