Stumped Parents

I love this comic.  There are so many parents sitting with their child at the table this very minute who are shaking their heads at their child's homework.  As a parent, I know what it feels like to want your child to succeed and I can understand how frustrating it must be when they come to you with a math question that you don't know the answer to.


Don't feel bad parents!!!  There are many reasons why your head may be spinning at the site of something like parabolic transformations.  You may not be able to work out the solution with your child yourself, but here's what you CAN do:

1. If you just need to brush up on your math skills, take a look through the textbook, odds are there are some examples of the types of questions your child is working on and you may be able to learn together.  What a confidence builder for you both!

2. Hire a tutor or seek the help of a peer tutor.  A lot of students now need volunteer hours in order to graduate and this may be an opportunity students would love to take advantage of!

And here's my favourite 'goto' source.....
3. USE THE INTERNET  :)

Technology has come A LONG way since I went to school.  The amount of information out there is absolutely astonishing.  I got my first computer when I was in grade 12.  We had dial up internet and my computer had a 500 mb Hard Drive.  It is unbelievable how far we've come since then and it can be a savior for parents trying to help their children with their math homework.

Here are a few places you can check out on the world wide web

YOUTUBE and TEACHERTUBE- Youtube and teachertube math lessons/tutorials are become increasingly popular with teachers, parents, and students. 
As of today, the youtube channel kahnacademy has 2346 videos posted with over 55 million views while another channel yourteachermathhelp has 677 videos posted with over 16 million views.  I do not endorse one channel over another but these are excellent examples of the online tutorials out there that you and your child can view and learn from together.

If I simply do a search on youtube for '"parabolic transformations" math lesson',
you will find the following videos
Transformation of Parabola  
Graphing Transformations of parabolas/quadratics  
Review Part 3: Quadratic Function: Tranformations of Functions 
Graphing Quadratic Functions - YourTeacher.com - Algebra Help

WEBSITES
There are many websites where you can find math lessons and tutorials but here's a few links!
www.mathtv.com
www.math.com
www.webmath.com
www.hippocampus.org
www.mathatube.com
http://ca.ixl.com/


GOOGLE - Simply google the subject matter you are looking for help with.  If the question is about parabola transformations..... google "parabolic transformations help".  Yes, it's that easy!  If you aren't sure what to google, just take a look at the lesson title in their textbook or notes.


A final note to parents:
DO - Seek help whether it be from their teacher, a tutor, or online tutorial.

DON'T - Proclaim that your child's homework is 'stupid' and they will never have to use this in 'real' life.  You will only be increasing their math anxiety and creating a negative attitude about math in your child that they may in turn pass on to their children.

Leave a comment below if you have any links or resources you'd like to share about the topic and I'll add them into my post  :)


 
Here are a couple of Nintendo DS Games that can make learning fun for those avid video gamers.













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