After the recent posting of another Weapon of Math Destruction cartoon, I wondered how many I’d linked to from Teach Effectively, so I checked. There’ve been only seven posts. Here’s a set of links to those posts (in reverse chronological order; fifo):
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.
Singapore 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.
Among 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.
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.
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.
Yes, I have more important things to do than browse cartoons, but I just spent a bit of time looking at “Weapons of Math Destruction,” a string of cartoons conceived by Oak Norton and drawn by Bob Bonham. Many of these are a hoot.
Follow this link to get to the full site where you can explore at your leisure. Follow this link to read Mr. Norton’s account of how the cartoons came into being. Follow this link to see why I blame Barry Garelick for distracting me. Follow any link to Kitchen Table Math to see why I flash the old electrons at Catherine Johnson for keeping me informed.
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