Teaching with D&D: Magical Math D&D Lesson Plan #2

“How to Reduce Math Phobia”

After finishing Lesson Plan #1 and pushing your story along a bit *, it is time to attack academia again! By now your class or group has started off on their adventure and maybe even had a battle. Not too far along will be a great place to begin Lesson #2 – Math. Putting age aside temporarily, one of the main goals of teaching math through D&D, for all ages, is that you get to fight one of the most fundamental scourges of the student world – math phobia.

The fear of numbers and math class is generational. As a math teacher, I’ve heard so often from parents, “I don’t know how to do this stuff myself. I was never good in math.” Being good in math is a skill, which can be learned through practice. With this in mind, playing D&D is a solution to reducing math anxiety because as a player you “use math” all the time. Being comfortable around numbers is one of the most important life skills.

Note: In the United States, we teach (or “touch on”) a large number of skills, whereas in some other countries they focus in-depth on a smaller number of skills. 3rd Grade touches on a lot of math: numbers and comparing; place values; addition; subtraction; mixed operations, properties; equations and variables; estimation and rounding; logical reasoni