| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"Dom" |
| Date: |
18 Jun 2007 06:46:06 PM |
| Object: |
More math education |
The entire item is at:
http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/more-math-education/
More math education
From over at Mathematics Weblog (a paragon of naming wit), I find a
few videos on YouTube dealing with math education. The first one shows
me why Washington State has to cripple its graduation requirement
exams. Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth illustrates some of the
"reform math" texts for fourth and fifth graders, and shows the
incredibly intricate--yet somehow called simpler--algorithms for basic
place-value multiplication and division. The New Math overshot
students' capacity to learn abstract concepts, but these methods
undercut their ability to learn at all, and at every step they come
back to their all-powerful god: calculator.
....
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| User: "Larry Hewitt" |
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| Title: Re: More math education |
19 Jun 2007 03:02:40 AM |
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"Dom" <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote in message
news:1182210366.516241.322860@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
The entire item is at:
http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/more-math-education/
More math education
From over at Mathematics Weblog (a paragon of naming wit), I find a
few videos on YouTube dealing with math education. The first one shows
me why Washington State has to cripple its graduation requirement
exams. Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth illustrates some of the
"reform math" texts for fourth and fifth graders, and shows the
incredibly intricate--yet somehow called simpler--algorithms for basic
place-value multiplication and division. The New Math overshot
students' capacity to learn abstract concepts, but these methods
undercut their ability to learn at all, and at every step they come
back to their all-powerful god: calculator.
...
What bushwa, In the first couple of minutes she makes several false
assertions, including, laughably, that most parents can do traditional
multiplication.
They cannot.
I, for ex, work with a bunch of civil engineers who have calculators on
their desks and in their pockets.
And she also asserts that students who learn to multiply by breaking numbers
down ( using the distributive property of numbers) do not beceme "confident"
in multiplying mubers. More bushwa.
Why?
When she "explained" the traditional method she made leaps of faith ---
saying without support that a "2" really is twenty, adding a zero as a place
hiolder without explanation, aliging columns of numbers without explaining
that she was, and why, and so on.
The EM method FULLY explains place value adn requires no magic.
And just to emphasize:
she is a meteorologist and weather girl, not a trained teacher or
mathematician.
Most obnoxious was her cpnclusion, that the poor math skills of HS grads
today, including lack of understanding of trig and the symbolic language of
math is because of deficeincies in third grade curricula. And, of course,
the old demon caclculators are becoming common.
As to the first problem, as a math teacher I place more of the blame on
school boards and HS graduation requitremetns that allow students to
graduate with even college prep degrees without ever having taken a trig,
analytic geometry, of other logic class. EVERY required course does what
these naysayers revere --- rote memorization. Yes, Virgina, you can be
accepted into college having taken 1 algebra course and 1 geometry course
And for the second, even thirty years ago when I started college I used aids
for calculation ---- slide rules and log tables, f. ex. We just weren;t
required to get as many significant digits as is possible with a
calculator..
Nah, this is merely alarmism from luddites and traditionaliosts.
Larry
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| User: "clapton39" |
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| Title: Re: More math education |
19 Jun 2007 10:05:48 PM |
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On Jun 18, 7:46 pm, Dom <D...@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The entire item is at:
http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/more-math-education/
More math education
From over at Mathematics Weblog (a paragon of naming wit), I find a
few videos on YouTube dealing with math education. The first one shows
me why Washington State has to cripple its graduation requirement
exams. Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth illustrates some of the
"reform math" texts for fourth and fifth graders, and shows the
incredibly intricate--yet somehow called simpler--algorithms for basic
place-value multiplication and division. The New Math overshot
students' capacity to learn abstract concepts, but these methods
undercut their ability to learn at all, and at every step they come
back to their all-powerful god: calculator.
...
Why is math and latin still being taught?
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| User: "Steve Daniels" |
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| Title: Re: More math education |
19 Jun 2007 11:30:55 PM |
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On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:05:48 -0000, against all advice, something
compelled clapton39 <clapton39@gmail.com>, to say:
Why is math and latin still being taught?
So that number agreement can be learned.
--
Life is too short to play cheap guitars.
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