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Probably just very local. Many school districts don't teach or require their students to learn math facts. That's the entire point of the constructivist curricula that has been used since the 1990s, and now CC. You don't memorize math facts, you figure out an answer to a mathematical problem and explain how you did it.
Estimation belongs as an expansion of already acquired knowledge, NOT in place of it.
I don't. The constructivist instructional methods used to teach math in CC curricula simply won't work for a large majority of the population. And there is a very valid reason why that is. The benefits of such an instructional method are experienced only by those who are already knowledgeable on the relevant topic(s). Novice learners experience cognitive overload in working memory during their processing of such an instructional method which meansless knowledge is transferred to long-term memory and knowledge acquisition. That makes it less likely that they will learn. We're already seeing that outcome in global comparisons. U.S. students are falling farther and farther behind their international peers in math.
For a look at the limitations on the use of the progressive teaching methods with novice learners:
The gist: When used on novice learners (anyone who doesn't already have a substantial knowledge base, i.e. children students, early years of any college degree program, etc.), those progressive teaching methods result in little learning, and even what is learned is frequently incorrect.
Nice pdf but I could do a quick google search and find a similar document that states the exact opposite of what it is saying.
Also, I am not speaking specific to constructivism. People on here are railing over a 2nd grade CC "math problem." I am a parent of a child who is actually in school and they use the CC standards and I am attesting to the fact that CC does not have specific math problems, nor does it require that students solve specific, difficult to answer for their parents, questions in math.
My son, now in 6th grade does similar math work to what I did when I was a kid. He knows how to add/subtract and to multiply/divide and how to estimate.
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Originally Posted by randomparent
Teaching estimation is not a dumbing down of the curriculum. It an expansion of the skills we are expecting our students to master, and I believe both estimation and exactitude belong in a comprehensive math curriculum. Whether or not estimation is appropriately taught at the elementary school level is another matter entirely.
I figure, based on your screen name that you probably have kids too and I agree with you. It seems many of the largest complainers about CC don't have children and only use internet based anger to fuel their contempt for CC.
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Originally Posted by randomparent
I agree. One cannot estimate without first mastering the skills necessary to estimate. That said, it has been my experience that elementary school children are taught and expected to master the traditional algorithms, but they are now expected to use approximation to determine whether their answers make sense. They are not being taught estimation as a replacement for exactitude. I've witnessed plenty of math fact drills over the past decade or so to know that they are still being taught in elementary school, and that appears to be where all the controversy over CC arises, right?
I agree again. Once more, these people do not have first hand knowledge of what is being taught in schools today. Like in yesteryears, kids are still required to learn their math facts. The new part is that those facts are expanded a bit.
Oddly enough, I have friends on FB who complain about their first graders math problems and when they write out or take pictures of the problems, they really aren't that difficult to work out and the concepts being taught are the same ones I saw in first grade, they are just presented in a different way but both ways make sense. Too many people just want to complain about something. It is funny that most of the complainers don't even have kids who utilize common core yet they want to go on and on about what the kid is developmentally ready for when it comes to learning to count in tens and hundreds and ones lol.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Probably just very local. Many school districts don't teach or require their students to learn math facts. That's the entire point of the constructivist curricula that has been used since the 1990s, and now CC. You don't memorize math facts, you figure out an answer to a mathematical problem and explain how you did it.
Estimation belongs as an expansion of already acquired knowledge, NOT in place of it.
The red is TOTALLY incorrect. All schools in my district require kids to learn math facts. I ask you to show me a district that does not require kids to learn math facts like addition/subtraction and multiplication/division. And I live in a pretty large urban school district. I have cousins in larger suburban school districts who are little kids and they also are required to learn math fact here in GA. I am from Ohio and have nephews/nieces in OH who are in K-11 and they are learning math facts too.
Do you have kids? I don't think you do. If you did, you would see that they still do traditional math, they just have more varying sorts of math problems to solve and they also use different terminology.
Nice pdf but I could do a quick google search and find a similar document that states the exact opposite of what it is saying.
Probably true. However, test scores consistently support the conclusion that students aren't learning math via constructivist instructional methods.
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The red is TOTALLY incorrect. All schools in my district require kids to learn math facts.
That's local, just like I said.
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Do you have kids? I don't think you do. If you did, you would see that they still do traditional math, they just have more varying sorts of math problems to solve and they also use different terminology.
Not only do I have kids (adults now, but they were subject to the very earliest adoptions of constructivist Everyday Math - suffice it to say it was an utter disaster for a HUGE majority of the students at that time), but I also work with families whose kids have been taught via the constructivist methods like Everyday Math and Mathland in the 1990s and 2000s, and now CC. The constructivist curricula are un unequivocal disaster.
Shedding more light on this, take a look at the NAEP bare minimum proficiency ratings vs. each state's proficiency rating, here: NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
Not a single state educates even half of its students to bare-minimum very basic grade-level proficiency, with most hiding that fact by dumbing-down their NCLB tests year after year. More on that, here: Lake Wobegon, U.S.A. -- where all the children are above average
Just read some of the examples. It'll curl your hair, as it should.
"The goal of TIMSS was to investigate achievement in mathematics and science from a cross-cultural perspective. The international study is based on a cross-sectional sample of three age groups: (I) students from the two adjacent grades with the largest proportion of 9-year-olds, (II) students from the two adjacent grades with the largest proportion of 13-year-olds, and (III)students in the final gradeof upper secondary school in the general and vocational education system." - MPI for Human Development: Educational Research
"The concern that all U.S. students are being compared unfairly to elite students abroad runs deepest in regard to the last year of secondary school. The conventional wisdom is that in some other countries only the best students are still in school at that age. In fact, to the extent that biases can be identified in the population III samples, most of them should have favored the United States. For example, the United States has proportionally fewer 17 year olds enrolled than the average of other TIMSS countries with enrollment data. Since students who drop out presumably tend to be lower achievers, this phenomenon may enhance the relative rank of the United States." - Global Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS to Improve U.S. Mathematics and Science Education by the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education Global Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS to Improve U.S ... - Committee on Science Education K-12 and Mathematical Sciences Education Board, Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Resea
Your assuming I was referring to the TIMSS testing which shows us ranked much more favorably relative to some of the other rankings out there.
TIMSS has us 9th in the world in 8th grade math.
I'm speaking more to the rankings that show us in much worse shape and includes a number of countries with um....less than clean reputations involving anything that could impugn national prestige and honor.
Hey, even here in the US we have had some fairly major cheating scandals with regards to test results.
Probably true. However, test scores consistently support the conclusion that students aren't learning math via constructivist instructional methods.
That's local, just like I said.
Not only do I have kids (adults now, but they were subject to the very earliest adoptions of constructivist Everyday Math - suffice it to say it was an utter disaster for a HUGE majority of the students at that time), but I also work with families whose kids have been taught via the constructivist methods like Everyday Math and Mathland in the 1990s and 2000s, and now CC. The constructivist curricula are un unequivocal disaster.
Shedding more light on this, take a look at the NAEP bare minimum proficiency ratings vs. each state's proficiency rating, here: NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
Not a single state educates even half of its students to bare-minimum very basic grade-level proficiency, with most hiding that fact by dumbing-down their NCLB tests year after year. More on that, here: Lake Wobegon, U.S.A. -- where all the children are above average
Just read some of the examples. It'll curl your hair, as it should.
^^^Great post. Around here the schools lose their accreditation but keep getting a "free pass". Then again, it's not the schools fault when the kid shows up for kindergarten, doesn't know thier numbers, colors etc. and has never once held a book....as heard from my aunt that just retired from teaching in a so-so economic area.
I am not defending the implementation of common core curricula, and when my kids bring this kind of stuff home I do wonder about the benefits. However, I don't understand why this parent was unable to find the mistake. It's just a visual approach to the same method the parent uses in his reply. Looking at the typed numbers in the original problem, 'Jack' showed what 427-306 is instead of 427-316. Counting backwards - he got the 3 hundreds and the 6 ones, but he ignored the 1 ten. I don't know what kind of chicken scratch the dad wrote down to the left of 127, but it sort of makes me question his stated credentials.
This PhD in child development can help you predict. Many of the standards are completely inappropriate and go directly against natural child development:
Link keeps crashing but I can see from the URL that Shanghai is listed.....I have a number of Chinese friends, some living there and working...some here....and I think they'd tell you to take those numbers with a grain of salt.
I guess my bottom line is that I think we can all agree that:
1) US educational system and attitudes towards education need some work.
2) SOME of the international "rankings" are less trustworthy than others.
Link keeps crashing but I can see from the URL that Shanghai is listed.....I have a number of Chinese friends, some living there and working...some here....and I think they'd tell you to take those numbers with a grain of salt.
Problems with Chinese scores, perhaps, but that still doesn't discount the fact that even top U.S. students test poorly compared to many of their international peers.
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I guess my bottom line is that I think we can all agree that:
1) US educational system and attitudes towards education need some work.
I absolutely agree.
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