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Report Urges Changes in Teaching Math
NY Times ^ | March 14, 2008 | TAMAR LEWIN

Posted on 03/15/2008 1:58:58 AM PDT by neverdem

American students’ math achievement is “at a mediocre level” compared with that of their peers worldwide, according to a new report by a federal panel, which recommended that schools focus on key skills that prepare students to learn algebra.

“The sharp falloff in mathematics achievement in the U.S. begins as students reach late middle school, where, for more and more students, algebra course work begins,” said the report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, appointed two years ago by President Bush. “Students who complete Algebra II are more than twice as likely to graduate from college compared to students with less mathematical preparation.”

The report, adopted unanimously by the panel on Thursday and presented to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, said that prekindergarten-to-eighth-grade math curriculums should be streamlined and put focused attention on skills like the handling of whole numbers and fractions and certain aspects of geometry and measurement.

It offers specific goals for students in different grades. For example, it said that by the end of the third grade, students should be proficient in adding and subtracting whole numbers. Two years later, they should be proficient in multiplying and dividing them. By the end of the sixth grade, the report said, students should have mastered the multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.

The report tries to put to rest the long, heated debate over math teaching methods. Parents and teachers have fought passionately in school districts around the country over the relative merits of traditional, or teacher-directed, instruction, in which students are told how to do problems and then drilled on them, versus reform or child-centered instruction, emphasizing student exploration and conceptual understanding. It said both methods had a role.

“There is no basis in research for favoring teacher-based or student-centered instruction,” Dr..

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: education; homeschoolingisgood; matheducation; mathematics; science
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Text of the Report (pdf) I haven't read it yet. I don't know if I will.

Infantry is the Queen of Battle, and Mathematics is Queen of the Sciences.

1 posted on 03/15/2008 1:58:59 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

The statement ‘Without the Use of a Calculator’ is missing.


2 posted on 03/15/2008 2:27:23 AM PDT by Westlander (Unleash the Neutron Bomb)
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To: neverdem
The whole problem started with the new math back in the 60’s. The old rote learning methods worked very well for years. Just look at an 8th grade math test from back about 1920.

Also the “feel good” idea of passing everyone along and giving most students A's and B's hurts our overall education. Students take home report cards filled with A's and B's, when they are actually falling further and further behind.

3 posted on 03/15/2008 2:30:34 AM PDT by jmeagan (Our last chance to change the direction of the country -- Ron Paul)
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To: Westlander

Using a calculator is not the problem. The problem is not teaching the children the concept behind it and instead giving them a formula or process.

I was trying for 2 hours to teach a girl what a derivative and second derivative was and she just could not understand because she had never really understood the concept of slope. I was having to teach her things she should have learned from her teachers in junior high.


4 posted on 03/15/2008 2:37:24 AM PDT by ryan125
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To: jmeagan

Memorization has absolutely no place at all in mathematics.


5 posted on 03/15/2008 2:38:44 AM PDT by ryan125
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To: El Gato; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; jb6; tiamat; PGalt; Dianna; ...
The Claim: Identical Twins Have Identical DNA (No, copy-number variation strikes again!)

Court Quashes Request for Peer-Review Documents

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

6 posted on 03/15/2008 2:51:57 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: ryan125
Memorization has absolutely no place at all in mathematics

Yes it does: You can't do multiplication or division without memorizing the multiplication tables. Addition and subtraction require memorizing the tables of every single digit added or subtracted to/from every other single digit (or you can use your fingers, I suppose).

7 posted on 03/15/2008 2:56:55 AM PDT by j. earl carter
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To: neverdem

quality of teachers maybe?


8 posted on 03/15/2008 3:24:02 AM PDT by robomatik ((wine plug: renascentvineyards.com cabernet sauvignon, riesling, and merlot))
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To: robomatik
quality of teachers maybe?

Quality of teachers most probably! The really good ones won't put up with the bureaucratic bullshit present in most schools/colleges and/or the NEA and (many/most) eventually leave.

9 posted on 03/15/2008 3:31:15 AM PDT by pt17
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To: neverdem

Saxon Math, anyone?

Only the private schools and the Home Schools seem to have understood the value of Saxon’s incremental approach to mathematics.


10 posted on 03/15/2008 3:39:09 AM PDT by TIElniff (Autonomy is the guise of every graceless heart.)
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To: robomatik

It’s not just the quality of the teachers. Our school systems have completely neutered teachers and school administrations from enforcing discipline in the classroom or from even failing students.

To complicate matters, it used to be (at least talking to anyone a few decades older than I am) that if you came home with bad grades in school and reports of poor conduct, you got it from your parents. Where is that today? Essentially non-existent in far too many areas.


11 posted on 03/15/2008 3:43:39 AM PDT by CaspersGh0sts
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To: TIElniff

What are your opinions on the Singapore mathematics program?


12 posted on 03/15/2008 3:49:39 AM PDT by CaspersGh0sts
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To: Westlander
Students need to:

Memorize multiplication tables

Do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and Long division, both in their head and with a pencil (No D*MN calculator)

understand and apply fractions

Do slope intercept problems.

I have ninth grade students that can't do any of the above.

13 posted on 03/15/2008 3:52:00 AM PDT by verga (I am not an apologist, I just play one on Television)
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To: neverdem
I can only describe from a parent's point of experience. All three of my children had piano lessons, and each had a second instrument instruction 6-12. So all three continually whether they realized it during this time thought math/numbers as part of their daily life.

However, only one of them literally visualized numbers and was like a human calculator. This child by 5th grade mentally tracked grades to know what percentage was required on any given assignment/test to maintain a particular grade. Use to infuriate me to no end.

I have come to believe that the math - functioning part of the brain has its own compartment and the keys to opening that ability largely depends upon the ability of the instructor teaching the discipline.

14 posted on 03/15/2008 4:13:42 AM PDT by Just mythoughts (Isa.3:4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.)
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To: ryan125
Memorization has absolutely no place at all in mathematics.

For trained-rat activity, just following procedures is fine. However, for higher-level accomplishment, it is necessary to recognize concepts that aren't spelled out. Without that recognition ability, a student can never move beyond being told what to do and when to do it.

Recognition skill can be developed through either rote work, pattern development, or memorization. Whatever path is taken, the end result will be memorization, if it's done correctly.

15 posted on 03/15/2008 4:22:39 AM PDT by grania ("Won't get fooled again")
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To: TIElniff

We used Saxon, starting in 5/4 in the 3rd grade. Since math was the one subject we studied, year round, we just progressed through each of the books. By 9th grade we had finished Alg. II, and since we have dual enrollment at the local colleges, in 10th grade he tested into and started College Alg. at the local college. My son hated Trig but did fine in it...so makes one wonder if he just didn’t like the prof’s teaching style, and he liked the Calculus courses.

All that to say, although not a math genius, by any stretch of the imagination, Saxon prepared the way for college math courses. The thing I REALLY like about Saxon and homeschooling was, if I wasn’t sure if he fully grasped a concept the first time it was presented, I knew we’d be seeing it the next day and the next day and 3 months from now, in the form of review, so I could relax if he didn’t have a full understanding on the first go.


16 posted on 03/15/2008 4:39:54 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: j. earl carter
You can't do multiplication or division without memorizing the multiplication tables.

Oh, really? How high did the multiplication tables go in your school? Up to a million. If not, then how did you ever figure out how to multiply 62 X 70?

If you understand the concept then you can figure it out. If you just memorize the tables you are limited to what you have memorized.

Did your tables include fractions?

17 posted on 03/15/2008 4:50:37 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote!)
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To: TIElniff
Saxon Math, anyone?

Saxon sure knows how to use high numbers. Do they have programs for individual children?

18 posted on 03/15/2008 4:57:56 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote!)
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To: neverdem

One thing missing there is how to calculate interest on loans! We wouldn’t be in the mess in this country that we are in if people could do math. Not just those who got mortgages, but the loons that bought and resold the bad loans.


19 posted on 03/15/2008 4:59:33 AM PDT by finnsheep
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To: Freee-dame

Math ping


20 posted on 03/15/2008 5:00:19 AM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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