Favourite and least Favourite Math Teacher

 My favourite math teacher I’ve had was probably my pre-calc and calculus teacher. She had very structured classes, where we would start almost every class with a lecture. She explained the concepts of the day, and then proceeded to work through a few examples with us, increasing in difficulty. Then we would get a work sheet of questions to practice with which always had solutions posted already. I really enjoyed this style of teaching as I feel like I learn by observing. I almost always need someone to work through a problem before it makes sense to me, or simply explain the thought process they use to approach a question. I find I learn a lot better when I can just attempt all the problems and then identify the areas I’m lacking in and need to work on. This teachers structure allowed me to do that perfectly! During our work time, we were always allowed to ask questions and were encouraged to come in before and after school to solidify concepts. To be honest, although I really enjoyed this teaching style, it was probably more of the one ion one help I received when I came into school early that helped me the most. Being able to ask specifically about small parts of problems that caused confusion helped me to really grasp concepts as a whole instead of just “tricks” and “rules”. 

My least favourite math teacher was probably a university math prof. He would only really go over definitions and proofs in class. He would never link the concepts to problems we were working on, so when it came to homework questions I was always so confused. I understand it’s important to understand why you solve a problem the way you do but it felt like I was expected to understand and be able to apply all these new and difficult concepts without support. There were rarely examples done in class, and if there were, he wouldn’t actually solve the problem but just asked students who did understand what the answers were. He would rush over the nitty gritty of each question and skip straight to the solution since a small portion of the class understood. By the end of the semester I didn’t even feel like it was worth going to class because it felt no more helpful than reading definitions online. Even when asking for help in office hours, he would just ask me another question and tell me to think about things. I know it’s necessary for students to figure out questions on their own, but when you’re completely lost, sometimes you just need a step by step walk through of a problem which he refused to do. I felt like I was always behind and that I had to pre-learn concepts before class to get any benefits from them. In this class, I always felt stupid or incapable in this class because I couldn’t learn the way he taught, and I feel like I ended up internalizing a lot of those feelings.