Math Anxiety

http://math.about.com/od/reference/a/anxiety.htm

Many of the students I've encountered with math anxiety have demonstrated an over reliance on procedures in math as opposed to actually understanding the math. When one tries to memorize procedures, rules and routines without much understanding, the math is quickly forgotten and panic soons sets in. Think about your experiences with one concept - the division of fractions. You probably learned about reciprocals and inverses. In other words, 'It's not yours to reason why, just invert and multiply'. Well, you memorized the rule and it works. Why does it work? Do you really understand why it works? Did anyone every use pizzas or math manipulatives to show you why it works? If not, you simply memorized the procedure and that was that. Think of math as memorizing all the procedures - what if you forget a few? Therefore, with this type of strategy, a good memory will help, but, what if you dont' have a good memory. Understanding the math is critical. Once students realize they can do the math, the whole notion of math anxiety can be overcome."