MAT 107 and What I Took Away from It

Being a freshman at my local community college I knew what I wanted to major in and had a general idea of what I was going to study. When I signed up for my classes in the spring of 2010 I was placed in a class that taught us about the general studies of elementary math, MAT 107. I was looking forward to beginning this class and was willing to see exactly what it was about and what knowledge it had to offer to me. I have two younger siblings that both accelerate in mathematics however they too have questions sometimes and I believe since I have taken this class aiding them with my further expanded knowledge of this subject I can help them understand their problems better and more sophisticatedly. MAT 107 has taught me the facts of math and how to explain how I solved the problems. This process of explaining how I solved the problems has taught me how to understand the problem that much more rather than just solve the problem because that's what the formula said. Instead of just plugging numbers into a formula and solving the problem,  I now know the true values and meanings to these answers. I learned that what I thought was easy is more complicated that it was when I first learned it like the greatest common factor and the least common multiple. I discovered that I was pretty rusty on my graphs and that I did not even know the difference between a histogram and a bar graph. I learned that we learn numbers on a Base 10 basis. Who knew that? I sure did not have a clue, I always believed it was generally the counting numbers and they went in tens. I did not know that it had a formal name. Everything that I have learned in this class will in fact benefit me when it comes to my own teaching experience. I believe that taking this class will give me the advantage of having that insight on the facts of math and how to further explain how exactly a problem is solved the way it is and why it needs to be done that way. I struggled on a few assignments because they asked me to explain how I got the answer that I did. I always sat there for a moment after solving a problem and stared down at my paper and questioned myself as to how I was going to properly explain how I managed to get the answer that I did so that someone else could understand and learn from my example.  I strongly recommend this course, MAT 107, to any individuals who have difficulty with math, wish to become an elementary teacher, or who wish to become a general math teacher or major. This course has many great things to teach and will only be beneficial to those who choose to take it.