Thinking about math textbook

When I was a student, I think that it was important for me to learn the math concept under the teacher’s guidance so that I understood the concept before started to apply it to my daily life experience. When I was a Grade 9 student, I did not feel comfortable to discuss the math concept with other students but I was comfortable to share my opinion with the teacher. I used to reflect my understanding with the teacher instead of my classmates because I used to use the textbooks and practiced the textbook’s examples. However, as a teacher, now I think that it is important for students to understand the concept through problem-solving activities so that they learn math independently by reflecting on their understanding with the other students.

I think that using textbooks in school or not is all depends on the content and students’ needs. I mean, for some content, students have to use textbooks so that they stay on the right path and learn appropriate topics. However, sometimes students learn some content through social interaction instead of using textbooks. Nowadays, students or teachers do not have to stick only to textbooks in the school due to technology and creating classroom structures. Both of them support students to take risks to engage in discourse and to see themselves as capable of learning Math. Students’ mathematical identities are connected to their participation in a set of productive practices and processes of doing mathematics.