Talk:Improving Math Education
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Comment by Ken Jensen 7/22/09
The following is quoted from an email message sent to the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics distribution list on 7/22/09/09.
- I do agree that high quality instruction has teacher directed as well as student centered components. The point of the original article was students reporting "that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw." My contention is that this occurs because the technology is being abused by teachers and professors who are controlling the learning based on the belief that their way is the only way to get to an answer. I have seen Smart Boards, Visualizers, and other classroom technology used by students who are exploring, discussing, debating, and presenting ideas, concepts, procedures, and results in a highly engaging learning environment. I have not, however, ever seen a PowerPoint presentation that generated a desire to learn more about the topic.
Comment by Ken Jensen 4/17/09
The following is quoted from an email message sent to the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics distribution list on 4/17/09.
- Most of the difficulty I have when coaching math teachers is helping them to see an instructional model that is different than the one they experienced as a student. Previous teaching experiences in a traditional model does make a transition into an exploratory model challenging, but I believe that most of difficulty comes from our cultural perceptions of what a math class looks like, and this understanding comes from how we were taught as youngsters. I try to validate a teachers struggle with this by saying, "The hardest thing you can ever ask a teacher to do is to teach in a way they were not taught themselves".
- What I am finding is that the best math teachers coming out of college these days have grown up in a system where math is taught through an exploratory, constructivist model. This seems to be a better indicator of success in our district than the college they attended. Teachers who experienced best instructional practices from their own teachers are becoming our best teachers. However, having said that, I am finding that the 3 semester internship model though the University of Colorado at Denver is providing us with teachers who take on their first year more effectively than the other schools in our state.
Comment by Herman Rubin added 3/14/09
Herman Rubin is a professor in Statistics at Purdue University. Quoting from a 2/12/2002 blog posting:
- Government schools [our public school system] have put our education in such a bad way that one cannot even find schools which will teach children according to their abilities. A major part of the problem is the utterly stupid idea that all children should get the same education at a given age.
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- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Comment by David Moursund 3/14/08
Education is multi-dimensional. In general, people are not good at dealing with multi-dimensional problems that have many interacting and often non linear variables.
Thus, for example, it might be suggested that providing all students with a laptop computer will significantly improve the quality of education the students are getting.
Someone else will suggest that if we provide every student with some books that they will own and have available where they live will significantly improve education.
Someone else will suggest that assigning more homework (or, less homework) will significantly improve education.
Still others will suggest that more tests and setting higher requirements for moving from grade level to grade level, or for graduating from high school, will significantly improve education.
The list goes on and on. What often happens is that a particular stakeholder group will select one or several of the ideas, work to get them implemented (required), and expect that the results will be good. In most cases, the proposed changes produce little lasting improvement.
