Evidence-based teaching methods for helping students who are at risk for school failure or who have disabilities.
Yep, those folks at “Weapons of Math Destruction” apparently do not find constructivist approaches to teaching arithmetic and mathematics palatable. In this cartoon, the school administrators have crossed out practice and skills and a parent is responding by preparing to (ahem) regurgitate or recovering from having regurgitated.
Follow this link to get to the full site where you can explore at your leisure.
Sphere: Related ContentSingapore Math was featured in an article by Mitchell Landsberg on the front of the Web site of the Los Angeles (CA, US) Times on 9 March 2008. To introduce his case study of the success of Singapore math, Mr. Landsberg used a clever bar-math-like lead:
Here’s a little math problem:
In 2005, just 45% of the fifth-graders at Ramona Elementary School in Hollywood scored at grade level on a standardized state test. In 2006, that figure rose to 76%. What was the difference?
If you answered 31 percentage points, you are correct. You could also express it as a 69% increase.
But there is another, more intriguing answer: The difference between the two years may have been Singapore math.
On it’s face, Singapore Math looks appealing. It has multiple strengths: teaching students algorithms; integrated and multiple repetitions; low reading load; etc. What it doesn’t really have is clear and powerful research support; in their synthesis of research on effective programs in elementary mathematics, Bob Slavin and Cynthia Lake could not find strong studies examining the effects of Singapore Math. We—educators concerned with providing effective instruction for students—need those studies.
Link to Mr. Landsberg’s article. Link to the review by Professors Slavin and Lake. Learn more about Singapore Math from a study by Alan Ginsberg and colleagues.
Sphere: Related ContentAmong the many reporters covering the story, John Hechinger of the Wall Street Journal wrote that a US federal advisory panel will soon release a report that is supposed to put to rest contentious disagreement about the teaching of arithmetic and mathematics in our schools. Some have likened the pending report to another report on reading issued by the National Reading Panel at the turn of the millennium.
A presidential panel, warning that a “broken” system of mathematics education threatens U.S. pre-eminence, says it has found the fix: A laserlike focus on the essentials.
The National Mathematics Advisory Panel, appointed by President Bush in 2006, is expected to urge the nation’s teachers to promote “quick and effortless” recall of arithmetic facts in early grades, mastery of fractions in middle school, and rigorous algebra courses in high school or even earlier. Targeting such key elements of math would mark a sharp departure from the diverse priorities that now govern teaching of the subject in U.S. public schools.
Link to Mr. Hechinger’s article.
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Those clever folks over at Weapons of Math Destruction have stuck yet again with another witty take-down of mal-education in the mathematics area.
As much as I like this one, I think the image of the face for the child “on fuzzy math” should be different. I see fuzzy math and its cousins as resulting more in happy witlessness. That’s the idea: Make it fun and engaging; students’ll just figure it out magically…re-discovering everything from counting through Archimedian insights and onto the calculus. Shouldn’t those kids be smiling?
For those outside the US who are not familiar with the brain-vs-brain-on theme incorporated into this cartoon, here’s a hint: There was an advertisement that first appeared in the 1980s showing a man holding a chicken egg and saying “This is your brain,” then cracking the egg into a frying pan and saying, “This is your brain on drugs.” Here’s a link to a Wikipedia entry about the brain-on-drugs advertisement.
Oh Well…off to a thumbnail catalog from Weapons of Math Destruction for the big version of this cartoon.
Sphere: Related ContentLater today (19 February), the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement will host a Webcast entitled “Making Algebra Work: Instructional Strategies That Deepen Student Understanding.” It will feature Jon R. Star, Assistant Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Professor Star, who studied at the University of Michigan, specialized in students mathematics learning during the middle- and high-school years.
It is slated to run from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (US Eastern). One can register for the event online. Learn more about Professor Star from his Harvard Web site. Link to the Web site of the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement.
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Well, as regular readers know, I sometimes check on the cartoons at Weapons of Math Destruction. I learned about this one yesterday. It’s about some fellows discussing an exorcism of a crazy character who maintains that students do not need to learn multiplication tables.
I have actually heard some mathematics educators contend that students should learn mathematics without reference to numbers. I can imagine how that’s possible, but I sure have a hard time understanding why it’s wise, let alone practical.
The image is linked to it, but you can get to the original on WMD from here, too.
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The folks over at Weapons of Math Destruction released another in the long line of pretty-insightful-and-pretty-funny cartoons about education. Although I do not routinely use the term “educrats,” I see it often and understand its reference to educators who knowingly or unwittingly sustain ineffective educational practices. This cartoon captures an aspect of that idea, and it made me grin.
Link to a larger version
Sphere: Related ContentIt appears that there is a disagreement about how to teach mathematics effectively in at least a half dozen communities around the US. You may already know about rumblings in the states of Washington, as represented by the folks at “Where’s the Math?”, and Missouri, where it’s Columbia Parents for Math that Works. But, what do you know about Ridgewood (NJ, US), Beaverton (OR, US), New York (NY, US), Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, and Newbury Park (CA, US), and Chicago (and elsewhere in IL, US)? If you know of other groups such as these, please drop a note about them in the comments.
Continue reading ‘Math reform matters’
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