An End To Math Wars

[WalkaCrookedLine]

"Collaborative group excercises" means 1 or 2 students in the group learn the subject and the rest copy their answers. I fail to see how this is in any way desirable.

[mathmotivation]

@WalkaCrookedLine es, I agree with you if group work is your only means of learning and evaluation. I give the group exercises after doing lecture. And at least through the group work there is a certain amount of enthusiasm shown by some of the class and we can focus on the deductive reasoning aspect of the math (justifying steps, doing proofs, etc). That said, there is only one true way to insure the validity of results: individual closed book/notes exams and quizzes.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Let's make sure kids can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Confidently. THEN you go to more abstract concepts. The lunacy of Reform Math is that they want to abuse young kids with stuff that used to be taught in high school. Reform Math should be called Deform Math.

[sleeper2345]

@BruceDeitrickPrice "

1 month ago

"Let's make sure kids can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. THEN you go to more abstract concepts." Focusing on computation alone provides little insight. Students are capable of learning to apply the operations at the same time that they learn how to do so. Suggesting that we delay introducing ideas about area until students learn basic facts and procedures is unnecessary when are can serve as a springboard into helping students make sense of basic facts.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@sleeper2345

CONFIDENTLY. That's the essential ingredient.

(The amazing thing to me is the way these people pushing Reform Math like to pretend there are these deep concepts, and kids must drop everything to wrestle with them. 2+3=5 is empirical; it's a definition, a tautology really. There's no concept worth the name.)

[sleeper2345]

@BruceDeitrickPrice 2 + 3 = 5 is an abstraction/general idea. It is an idea that applies across many contexts. It is not a definition or a tautology. You must develop meaning for "2" "+" "3" "5" and "=." This is not obvious to students, though you assume it is. Our number system (Hindu-Arabic) is quite complex and difficult to understand. Most adults have only a shallow understanding of it and have no idea how many million are in a billion. (See the Andy Rooney excerpt from 60 minutes)

[regimeoftruth]

@BruceDeitrickPrice How can 2+3=5 be emperical, and also a tautology? Your statement is the opposite of a tautology. Google it.

[mathmotivation]

@BruceDeitrickPrice I wholeheartedly agree! What I am proposing here (and using) is a slightly modified version of the lecture model that still stresses skills but also stresses the deductive nature of mathematics. What I am proposing is more applicable at the junior and senior high school level of mathematics. At the K-6 level, it is still very important to stress skills. I teach at a community college - I see recent high school graduates that can not add 1/4 + 1/3!

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@mathmotivation You want to save the world? Take the best of Singapore Math, Saxon Math, MathUSee, MathMammouth, etc. and create a common sense program for public school use. In the process, make all kids masters of simple arithmetic. In the process, banish Reform Math and Core Standards from the world. You see the kids you're getting. You know Reform Math was diabolical or, at best, incompetent. The same people are doing Core Standards. Can you stop the madness?

Bruce Deitrick Price

[pamtube1]

30 years ago, 5th graders weren't multiplying fractions and graphing equations. Comparing apples with apples, and sorting out the oranges, will help us make strides on what is actually effective in developing computation AND reasoning skills.

[thisnameisuniq]

Students do bad in math for the same (societal) reasons they do badly in all other areas of academic study. A teacher can curve the grades on written essays, but 2 + 2 will never equal 5.

[11proser11]

If we've seen a decline in the US regarding mathematics, it isn't because the old way was "broken." Many societal factors must be put into the equation. Partially in reaction to this decline we've responded by reinventing the way mathematics are taught and it is not helping. Children that were never exposed to the old way, and therefore had no idea if that way was broken or not, now struggle with a remake of a classic... which never turn out well in movies either.

[sleeper2345]

Actually, students in the US at the 4th and 8th grade levels are performing two grade levels above students 30-40 years ago (see the NAEP longitudinal study). However, this information is not leaked by the press as good news does not sell newspapers.

[crazymonkeyxyz]

Its a fucking moving book

[ernestjohann]

Reform math, new math, fuzzy math... it's all embarassing and it is a huge black mark on our (north american) education system. There is a reason that high school students don't know their basic arithmetic - they spent too much time drawing math pictures or writing math poems in elementary. A revolution in education is long overdue.

[sleeper2345]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Someone has fed you some misinformation that you repeat to others. Have you looked at any of the NSF-funded texts? What was taught 30 years ago was "fuzzy math," following rules without the mathematical rigor to support those rules.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Great! I like the fact that responders beat up on this guy. Apparently, Reform Math is the fancy term for what disgruntled citizens are calling New New Math. Which is just the ghost of New Math, which everybody hated BECAUSE KIDS DIDN'T LEARN ANY MATH.

[jamesblackburnlynch]

"New Math" was a strange idea promulgated in the early 70's. It is nothing like this reform math. However, the term "new math" has come to mean anything that uses math in a stupid way.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

I see the continuity: lots of bad ideas that don't work. The educators can claim they teach math, but no one learns much math. Google "36: The Assault on Math" for more.

[sleeper2345]

Too bad the article you cite is divorced from what actually occurs in the classroom. The Third International Math and Science Study found that no US lessons were "high quality." Why? Because US mathematics lessons do not rely on reasoning, but emphasize procedures. If you look behind the curtain, you will find that most adults have learned little mathematics and almost no mathematical reasoning. These adults reason like 4th grade students and have little understanding of basic fractions.

[mrvaldeez]

this type of math is doing a great disservice to students and should be erased from any curriculum everywhere. the problem being, it doesn't help foster real world thinking, it gives teachers in post secondary education a new faculty, the one that teaches students the way the math should have been taught the first time around. i don't think we are turning out better and smarter students because of the fact that we have not seen an increase in the quality of the students heading into college.

[calendar2222]

Reform math is perfect for young minds that will need a mental crutch for the rest of their lives. These are the kind of future employees who irritate colleagues with their dependence on others to think for them. But who cares whose method is best? You can get above 90 per cent in school and still lose it all if you don't use it.

[521scottd]

you made a VIDEO of text. That's worth repeating: a video of nothing but text. And you're trying to convince us you know how to convey information?

[Aragond68]

@521scottd

LOL

kewpie doll to you!

[lvroberts]

Not enough text and too many images. ;-)

[cebdark]

Picture a child with dysgraphia trying to make sense of a lattice. Small accomplishments give confidence. Confidence gives a sense of "I can do this." They can be proud and that encourages them to continue on to more difficult algorithms. Frustration only leads to feelings of failure and a true dislike of math. When you hand an eight-year-old your car keys and tell them to take a spin on I-95, then you can come back and tell me that this math is a good CORE math program.

[cebdark]

Giving children 2 or 3 differing ways to solve problems that are so clearly above their physical, emotional, and mental capabilities does not work. Sorry, but it's basal. Children (particularly K - 3) learn best when given small incremental algorithms (i.e. twenty-five divided by 5 instead of 25,000 divided by 50) until MASTERED. Children, with learning disabilities in particular, sink with Everyday Math.

[aschance]

What if, students learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide so that they had the tools to learn algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus and advanced mathematical concepts when their brains are developed enough to process it.

[alwaysmc2]

12th grade algebra? That's your problem right there. At my school is is common to take algebra 1 in 8th grade and algebra 2 in 10th grade.

[mathmotivation]

Actually, this is the course that follows Algebra II. In some schools this would be Grade 11 but in many this would be Grade 12.

[babybabs9]

it's like learning how to spell, yes there is spellcheck, but you don't allow grade schoolers to use it, the point of taking a class is to learn these things yourself. You don't always have a computer near you when you need to spell something or do an equation, so while using technology seems like the easy thing to do, it gives you a population of ignorant dyslexics who write things like "OMFG tru L0v3! ZOMFG L375 /\/\@k3 B4B135!" "ZOMFG NOOB! I PWN JEW!"

::twitch::

[ogasa4]

At the higher levels of education, may be starting from the 9th grade or higher, your style may be used; but at the initial introduction to arithmetic, each child SHOULD be made to understand the TRADITIONAL algorithms. The very process of learning them sharpens the mind imensely. Once one grsp these algorithm, he moves to a level of comprehension that is strictly human, on earth any way.

[garouHH]

I disagree strongly on this. The "traditional" algorithms are efficient with space and time, but compared to the ones demonstrated in the video that this video is a response to, they shroud the mechanics of why they work in mystery. Understanding i.e. traditional multiplication after partial products, however, is trivial.

[WolliJ]

This ain't a video, it's just text and crappy music. Boooooooooooooring

[ogasa4]

YOU INBREED!

Are you a BABY? Or why do you need a VIDEO?

[WolliJ]

Well, 1) it's announced as a video, 2) I don't like to read s.o. else's texts at their speed, not at mine. As I don't want to be even more unpolite than you, just copy back your comment on yourself. And why don't you go to the cinema, maybe there's a fine lecture or some talk?

[ogasa4]

DANG! Did I touch a NERVE?

That actually was a video of written words. I rest my case.

[fidely]

Idiots, making me waste my time reading your discrepancy.

[garouHH]

I have to agree with WolliJ. The text is presented at around a tenth of my reading speed, so I ended up reading the texts parts, but not combining them into the full structures. Now that I've watched it for the first time, I get the gist of it, something about augmenting science classes with real-world examples presented in short video clips... I think. But that's the point: If the text had been presented as a text, I would have understood more and be sure of what I had read.

[ogasa4]

It is a video recording of letters, words, sentences. VIDEO! IT IS A VIDEO!

[Gregarious3]

I only liked the music.

[chinter]

@Gregarious3 Bach's music is extremely mathematical.

[GerardoArwi57]

@chinter What's the name of the music?

[GerardoArwi57]

@Gregarious3 What the music called?