Posted on 09/18/2006 5:18:06 PM PDT by mathprof
The countries that outperform the United States in math and science education have some things in common. They set national priorities for what public school children should learn and when. They also spend a lot of energy ensuring that every school has a high-quality curriculum that is harnessed to clearly articulated national goals. This country, by contrast, has a wildly uneven system of standards and tests that varies from place to place. We are also notoriously susceptible to educational fads.
One of the most infamous fads took root in the late 1980’s, when many schools moved away from traditional mathematics instruction, which required drills and problem solving. The new system, sometimes derided as “fuzzy math,’’ allowed children to wander through problems in a random way without ever learning basic multiplication or division. As a result, mastery of high-level math and science was unlikely. The new math curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes, touching on dozens of topics each year.
Many people trace this unfortunate development to a 1989 report by an influential group, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. School districts read its recommendations as a call to reject rote learning. Last week the council reversed itself, laying out new recommendations that will focus on a few basic skills at each grade level.
Under the new (old) plan, students will once again move through the basics — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and so on — building the skills that are meant to prepare them for algebra by seventh grade. This new approach is being seen as an attempt to emulate countries like Singapore, which ranks at the top internationally in math.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Here's what you do to catch up:
First, you make math (not math and science, math) the priority in the school. No humanities, English or other stuff. That comes later with student interest and as a part of learning the mathematics.
Second, you may mathematicians and math teachers more. This applies in part to higher education but mostly to secondary school. Math teachers are entirely too weak in their subject area.
Third, vouchers. Period. Many other countries use them.
I'll bet you didn't study the Constitution. I'll bet you studied "emenations and penumbras."
Here's a question: Is it against the federal Constitution for Utah to make the LDS church the official state church of Utah?
" As well you should have been. Similarly, you are expected to write in complete sentences, capitalizing proper nouns and the first words of sentences.
Mathematics courses are about methods, not answers. Sans showing steps, there is no way to tell if the student even has an idea about how to solve a problem. The student may have got the answer by working it out, hearing it on the radio, seeing the answer on a nearby student's paper, or guessing. Also, (at least in some of my courses), partial credit would be available for correct methods with some penalty for arithmetic mistakes."
No math whiz here, but it always seemed the more advanced math concepts were built upon the foundation of basic. The more complicated equations had and underpinning of less complicated individual operations. Showing work makes sense.
Process not product
Build a wall brick by brick
We learn "...line upon line, precept upon precept."
You should put some ice on that.
Lighten up and smile. You dont know me or my education or informational status. No need to become ill.
Congrats on your daughters success.
That is insane! Math through high school (all I ever learned of it, anyway) is essentially a series of "tools" and techniques that build on what you have learned already. Master the toolbox and you can do enough basic math for any everyday function.
Can you imagine this technique applied in a real-world application? "Rather than teaching use of the drill-press, lathe, belt sander, and table saw, we will allow workers to wander through the project in a random way." At best your project will be a wreck but all the workers retain their fingers.
Algebra in particular can be far simpler than many people make it out to be. The rules are:
1. You can use any basic math operation you like, as long as...
2. Whatever you do on one side of the equals sign, you also do on the other.
The rest of it just depends on learning those basic math operations. There's the rub, I suppose...
great analogy! I'll have to use it sometime.
Thanks, I'm glad.
I agree. It also brings to mind the sterling idea to eliminate phonics as a tool to teach reading. The Department of Education and the teacher's unions couldn't have done better, at tearing down our education system. And that's why I say, tear them down. That's the first step back to a healthy education system IMO.
My daughter is in second grade, and I basically told her that what she gets for her homework astounds me in how simple it is compared to what I had in second grade.
I've got her already way ahead of the class in math, she can do her times tables through 9 X 9. In her class, they are still not doing any addition problems using numbers greater than 18, that's nuts.
Get computers out of the elementary school classrooms. The purpose of elementary school is to teach kids how to use their brain, not how to use tools. Once they have master the concepts, then use the tools.
I also FReep during class time. As a homeschool mom with a class of two, it doesn't take me every second of the 4 to 5 hours we spend on academics each day to teach. I'm a facilitator more than a lecturer. Both my kids are independent learners and self-starters.
My time is spent assigning work, helping them organize, clarifying directions, checking their work, etc. They both work on their own and when they need me, they know where I am. In between those times I FReep, clean house, do laundry, start dinner, pay bills, answer email, etc., all things I can do in small time increments while they work. Judging from their test scores and that fact that they both work above grade level, I'd say we're doing something right.
BTW, we use Singapore Math--I highly recommend it.
>>I'll bet you didn't study the Constitution. I'll bet you studied "emenations and penumbras."<<
You would lose that bet. My understanding of these terms is that they were used in the Griswald case to create a right to privacy where none existed. ConLaw classes do deal with substantive due process, including some right to privacy issues, but usually not direct bill of rights issues.
>>Is it against the federal Constitution for Utah to make the LDS church the official state church of Utah?<<
Depends. As the constitution was written, and interpreted, during the constitutional convention and for about 35 years thereafter, no. As it is interpreted now, yes.
This is a first amendment issue, though, which isn't really dealt with in a ConLaw class.
Feel free - and it's great to have a FReeper teaching in MD!
Come on now the Russian people have contributed a great deal to world culture.
And why do those people who interpret (emenations and penumbras, no matter how you slice it) it that way continue to be members of the bar? I would argue that they are even too stupid to walk around unsupervised.
"Congress shall make no law..." It's not an individual right, it's a restriction on Congress.
This is why Con Law shouldn't be taught by lawyers but it should be taught by logicians. The Constitution is not long and it's not complicated, but somehow the legal profession bases its judgements of Constitutional principles on rulings that have at least 6 degrees of separation from the document itself.
Stare decisis is a Latin term meaning "perpetuating stupidity".
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