5 Ways to Overcome Anxiety and Increase Enjoyment in Math

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Editor’s Note: The author of this piece, through her organization Kidskintha, is hosting the 2021 World Early Years Summit, a virtual conference featuring expert presenters on a range of topics in early childhood and elementary education. Learn more about the summit here

WEYS Summit logo squareYou look down at your timetable, and your heart sinks. It’s math, again. Your heart starts pounding, and your palms go clammy. As you walk into the class and sit down, there’s a huge knot in your stomach. The equations you’re supposed to be working out in your textbook are swimming in front of you, and you can’t seem to make sense of anything, but all your classmates are busily writing down their answers…

Alright, enough with the drama, but math anxiety is REAL.

Academics from Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and Centre for Neuroscience have surveyed 1,700 British children on their feelings towards maths as a subject and discovered that 10% of them had symptoms of math anxiety in some form. Emotional reactions towards the subject ranged from “apprehension” to “rage and despair,” while physical reactions included shortness of breath, racing heart, and sweating.

In fact, it’s becoming so much of a problem that some researchers are calling it a “national crisis,” with the number of adults holding math skills equivalent to a GCSE grade C falling year after year (according to the charity National Numeracy).

Here are 5 great ways to overcome math anxiety and even get students on the road to enjoying math.

1. Make math fun

Nothing is worse than a boring math lesson with a teacher droning on about quadratic equations while scrawling complicated examples on the whiteboard.

Students who are not engaged with what they are learning and those they learn from are less likely to remember things they are taught. Teachers are increasingly using games to make lessons more engaging and fun, which can apply to math lessons.

There are many math games readily available on the internet and lots of worksheets and activities that you can use in the classroom to keep students engaged and having fun while learning. According to Educause, the gamification of learning helps students to understand that “failure is neither a setback nor an outcome but rather an indication that more work is needed to master the skill or knowledge at hand.” This is important for them to learn, as math anxiety is often linked to feelings of failure or bad results – which can soon create a vicious cycle.

Making math fun by incorporating games and varied activities in lessons will mean that students inherently want to learn

2. Get a tutor

Did you know that one month of overall learning is lost over the summer holidays? For students who are already unsure of their math ability, coming back after the school holidays feeling like they’ve forgotten everything can increase math anxiety. Employing a tutor to do one-to-one sessions with a student during term-times and school holidays can give them more confidence.

A recent US study involving 46 seven-to-nine-year-old children had them participate in 50 minutes of math tutoring per week. An MRI scan before and after showed that their levels of anxiety significantly reduced after the sessions.

This is because tutoring one-to-one allows students to move at their own pace and freely ask questions when they don’t understand something. In a classroom setting, they might feel embarrassed to speak up, or be left behind.

3. Positive reinforcement

Imagine you’re a thirteen-year-old student. Your dad is constantly laughing at your math problems, saying, “when will you ever need that equation in real life? You could use the calculator on your phone to work that out!” Your mum always says, “those equations always went right over my head. I’m just not a mathsy person”.

A study conducted on 595 students aged 10-15 showed that in homes where the parents demonstrated some form of math anxiety, the children performed to a lower standard than in homes where the parents had a more positive attitude towards math. The children of parents who demonstrated some form of math anxiety also exhibited negative feelings toward the subject.

Of course, these parents were not deliberately trying to sabotage their child’s relationship with math, but it is so important that parental input is productive. It can include things like helping with their homework and encouraging them to complete problems that they find difficult.

Parents and teachers alike can help to cultivate positive associations with math. For example, rather than a teacher threatening punishment if the exercise is not completed, he or she could encourage completion of the work by rewarding the first person to complete it.

4. Encourage understanding, not memorizing

There are two ways of learning; memorizing by rote or understanding the method behind the answers. An article by an academic in Hong Kong summed up the superior method of learning by memory like this: “Using a deep approach, a student has the intention to understand. Information may be remembered, but this is viewed as an almost unintentional by-product”.

Understanding the method behind solving problems is a good way to alleviate math anxiety because if the question is asked slightly differently, the student won’t get stuck. According to this PISA study incorporating thirteen million children, students who learn by rote and memory consistently achieve lower results. It is valuable to memorize things when learning, but only when memorization comes from working on problems repeatedly until they are understood.

Understanding the theory or methodology encourages students to think outside the box when solving math problems and promotes creativity. They won’t always need to use the same way of doing things but can try to find different paths to reach the same outcome. This boost of confidence at getting to the correct answer will help with any anxiety related to math because students will feel in control of the problem rather than overwhelmed by it.

5. Turn anxiety into excitement

You’re standing in the ring, and the bull is about to charge. You’ve got the red flag in your right hand, and your left hand is clenched sweatily at your side. Just before the whistle goes, you think to yourself repeatedly, “I am calm and confident. The bull is going to walk right past”. And it does!

While that may be a lighthearted example, it’s a good anecdote for how just re-framing a situation or a problem in your head can change the outcome. The same is true for a math problem. If students feel that they are getting anxious and saying things like “I’m worried about this problem,” you can have them reframe their words so they sound positive. An example is, “I can’t wait to solve this problem,” which immediately changes the mood and attitude towards the problem.

In her study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Alison Wood-Brooks found that people who were about to enter a stressful situation could perform better and achieve better results if they reframed their anxiety as excitement. It’s almost as if you can trick your brain into believing it is exciting, so you don’t get the normal symptoms of nerves. You create an “opportunity mindset” rather than a “threat mindset” where your body automatically goes into fight or flight mode.

A version of this article was originally published on Kidskintha

Watch Sharon Saline, Ph.D.  speak at the World Early Years Summit 2021 on the ‘Identifying & Managing Anxiety in Young Children,’ along with 30 other amazing speakers! Dr. Saline is an ADHD & Anxiety expert, a clinical psychologist, and the author of ‘What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life’, which was a winner of ‘Best Books Awards’ and Mom’s Choice Award.

  1. Kidsintha – World Early Years Summit 2021
  2. KQED – Math Anxiety Is Real. Here’s How To Help Your Child Avoid It
  3. PsyPost – Math anxiety in children may stem from insecure attachment, study suggests

Author

  • Devishobha Chandra

    After spending about 12 years in corporate life, she stumbled into the world of writing when she decided to chronicle my parenting experiences with my two little girls on Kidskintha. One thing led to another, and she discovered the big wide world of blogging, writing social media, digital engagement, and publishing. She has been published in EdCircuit, the HuffPost, Entrepreneur, Inc.com, Thrive Global, LifeHack, Parent.co, Tiny Buddha, Addicted2Success, Citizen Matters, Deccan Chronicle, and others.

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