Posted on 02/13/2014 8:05:41 AM PST by rktman
Here is the latest in a long line of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets to bubble up courtesy of Twitter, according to Twitchy.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
"Front end estimation" is bad stuff that they're using. It uses the "front" number of hundreds instead of rounding off to the nearest 100.
Thus, the "front end estimate" is 300 + 200 or 500. It shouldn't be called a front end estimate, it should be called a lower bound. If you have a lower bound, you should have an upper bound which is 400 + 300 or 700.
Thus, it would be not hideous to say the solution is between 500 and 700.
This is a lousy idea in teaching. The estimate is a guess. One should only venture a guess on something about which they've experienced certainty. Thus they should learn to add correctly, and then be asked to notice things about the answers.
In my adventures in substitute teaching, I encountered some classes that were totally confused from this nonsense. I was very bad. I taught them how to add the old fashioned way with regrouping, so they knew the answer. And I had them develop their estimates after they solved the problem, using the "between" estimate.
The kids hugged me after my old fashioned math classes, no kidding.
What makes you think I didn’t understand that?
All I’m saying is that I naturally made a more accurate estimate—which this lesson would be training kids away from using.
I wasn’t around for training 60 years ago, but I never had to be taught to estimate as a check on my work.
Huh? What is that and why is it being taught? Terrible!!
I agree. It’s valid lesson for a 1st or 2nd grader. Estimation is a transient skill that through more education gets improved and added upon.
Here is another good technique. I called it ‘Stand Up’ math. no chairs or tables, pencils, paper, calculators. — Toss them two numbers to add or subtract, have them guess as close as possible and as fast as possible without going over, then have them calculate the real answer.
Pair off the students and run them through drills. Sit down pencil and paper math learning at the early age cripples some students down the line. Just take an informal survey and start asking your friends a random math problem like adding two 1423 + 8534, See how many “hummmms” you get as many of them have to divert their minds and enter a quasi meditative state. Give them more complex problems and watch them search for pen/pencil, paper and a flat space. They are inhibitors — they learned at an early age to sit down, be quiet and concentrate to do math.
Just watch a competent child play an FPS video game. How much “estimation” is involved in what they do?
However, if I used this method of estimation, I'd end up with 5 bags of fertilizer when I needed 7. Interestingly, if I rounded the two numbers correctly, I'd have exactly the right number of bags to buy.
I don't get this "front-end estimation." If all you do is round down to the nearest 100, then your answers might be up to 200 off. I wouldn't call that "reasonable" by any stretch, for any sum under, say, 1000. Especially when the students have obviously been taught to add. I'd take 645 as a reasonable answer, because it's right.
I agree with your basic idea, but suggest that arithmetic is one branch of mathematics, not something separate.
Video games are not real life.
So what’s your point? There is nothing to be learned in video games?
Running guilds — Leadership and organization, introduction to petty politics.
Crafting — economics. Supply and demand. Quality vs quantity.
First person shooters — Spatial recognition, velocity and vector determination.
Not to mention all the militaresque skills that the kids will pick up.
It’s the accumulation of skills.
Only a childish idiot thinks video games teaches something. Adults living in the real world know better. We play video games, too, but live in realville. Same idiot mentality that thinks paintball teaches combat skills.
Lol only an idiot would think that, like a total moronic ‘I’m missing half my brain’ would come up with your code monkey opinion. At least screw in a 100 watt light bulb. Your 6w LED isn’t cutting it.
Just look at Star Trek TNG and how many times they saved the universe from inside the Holodeck.
Oh, and thanks for the trolls, I almost believed you were serious, but my opinion that nobody could be that ignorantly stupid clued me in.
“Reasonable” is only good for horse shoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons.
LOL! And some say (”gun safety advocates”?) “reasonable” in regards to gun control. Reasonable would be 1” from dead center of mass. ;>}
Good find, thanks.
bkmrk 4 ltr. tx
Granted in the broader conceptual idea of mathematics as a whole. But MOST people NEVER will study mathematics as a whole. They NEED to be able to do arithmetic not prove the fundamental theorem of counting. They NEED to be able to some basic algebra and some basic geometry.
The idea that some how you can get every one trained as a proof capable mathematician is just plain silliness. Rather like suggesting that because we know how to drive a car we should all be auto mechanics
Or automotive engineers.
I quite agree. I suffered through the first wave of the New Math, and never did understand why they thought it was necessary to try to teach the principles before the mechanics of arithmetic.
Well, actually I do understand. Nobody ever made a name for himself by simply treading in the footsteps of those who went before him, no matter how good the trail was. So “new methods” have to be invented to make a name for their inventors. Unfortunately, “new” does not always mean “better.”
Not to mention that video game expertise is very nearly the most effective way to train to pilot drones.
I can’t wait until the kids taking this kind of math start building infrastructure in America.
Idiocracy was a documentary.
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