To determine what the best practices are to teach secondary mathematics, the following areas need to be look at: growth and development, and motivation.
During the secondary years, students’ growth and development involves moving cognitively from concrete thinking to developing abstract thinking skills. Students need activities that require them to think about concepts that cannot be directly observed through the senses. Students are also undergoing personal development to develop their identity. This is accomplished through conflict, exploration, and commitment to their findings.
As for motivation, it is ideal for students to be mastery-oriented. This cannot be accomplished if their deficiency needs are not met, look like a fool in front of their peers, and are extrinsically motivated. For classroom motivation, teachers need to provide excessive feedback and attribute student success to their effort. Students need to have a low fear of failure, develop learning goals, attribute their success to effort, know that ability is improved through hard work, and learn self-regulated learning skills. As for meeting deficiency needs outside the classroom, teachers will need assistance from outside agencies so the student can receive help. If there is a deficiency need that is not being met in the classroom, teachers must urgently identify the problem and correct it.
Students, at any level of education, are changing. Since teachers are supposed to be one of the most stable adult figures in the students’ lives, teachers have a requirement to guide students through those changes. With proper guidance, students will become the adults we want them to become.
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