Feeling Anxious About Math? You’re Not Alone
Does a feeling of unease creep in when you think about a math problem or task? Do you lose sleep the night before a math test or try to avoid math homework or classes altogether?
You may be experiencing math anxiety.
With the new academic year starting, now is a great time to explore strategies and tools that can help you not only manage your math anxiety but also build the confidence you need to tackle mathematical challenges.
What is math anxiety?
Math anxiety is the feeling of unease when approaching a mathematical task. It can have a significant impact on learning mathematics. In particular, learners may experience affective drop, a drop in mathematical performance due to their working memory becoming overwhelmed when approaching a mathematical task.
What are some strategies and tools that students can use to manage or overcome math anxiety?
It is important to remember that every learner experiences math anxiety differently. What will be most helpful for a given student can vary, but two things can help most students: being consistent and asking questions.
Practicing problems on the topics being taught in class (even 15 to 20 minutes every night) can help. Math is a skill, so consistency is a large part of the learning process.
Asking questions is also a great way to increase understanding, clarify confusing points, and feel more confident with the material. In the UBC Math department, we have two dedicated spaces to ask questions: the Math Learning Centre (MLC) and office hours.
What is the Math Learning Centre (MLC)?
The MLC is a space where students can receive help from Graduate Teaching Assistants. Students can ask questions about course content or practice problems. The MLC is open all week long in the afternoon and evenings.
What are office hours?
Office hours are dedicated blocks of time when instructors are available to support their students. Students can drop in to ask questions, work through a problem, or discuss course material. Questions do not need to be specific or go beyond the course material. If you’re stuck on a topic, asking for help to understand that topic is what office hours and the MLC are for!
Generative AI is becoming increasingly common in education. Could it also be used as a tool to help ease math anxiety?
Generative AI (GenAI) can sometimes be used in tandem with other mathematical resources to help build math confidence and fluency, however, it is not a replacement for the learning process. GenAI tools allow students to ask for more step-by-step explanations, as well as alternative explanations or analogies if the output does not resonate with the learner. In a sense, similar to how students and the teaching team interact in the MLC or office hours.
How can students tell if the answer that AI gives them is correct?
It is good practice to always verify the output of AI tools, as GenAI has no way of knowing if its output is correct or not. Ultimately, the user is responsible for their use of the output. In some cases, learners may be able to assess the validity upon reading the output, but in other cases, they may need to utilize course notes/textbooks or ask an instructor. Students need to carefully and critically assess the output for accuracy to ensure GenAI has provided the right information.
What other risks should students be aware of when using generative AI?
Overreliance on GenAI can pose numerous risks for learners, especially students in foundational first-year mathematics courses. By offloading cognitive skills, learners do not build up the necessary mathematical skills to solve problems themselves; it creates a dependence on GenAI. A key part of the mathematical learning process is productive struggle when solving challenging problems, as this builds up our resilience, confidence, and problem-solving skills. Outsourcing this part of the learning process to GenAI can create a false sense of confidence where learners may feel they understand a topic but cannot solve problems unassisted. This dependence on GenAI can also add to test and math anxiety when those tools are not available during course assessments.
As a reminder, course content is copyrighted and should not be uploaded to GenAI. Make sure to check your course outlines for the GenAI policy and ask your instructor about the appropriate use of GenAI in the classroom.
Students should also keep in mind that there are environmental and ethical concerns surrounding GenAI. Learning about the biases and impacts of GenAI is a crucial component in deciding whether or not to use it.
What skills should first-year math students focus on developing?
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are two key skills that are important to hone. Math is a field that targets both of these high-level skills. By learning the math, we build up our own foundation, knowledge, and confidence not only with math itself, but also with our ability to break problems down, find errors, and communicate solutions effectively.