In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Feature photo above by Alberto G. (CC-BY-SA-2.0) via flickr.]

The school experience makes a tremendous difference in a child’s learning. Which of the following students would you rather be?

I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling.

— Agatha Christie
An Autobiography

…or…

“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?”

“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”

“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.”

“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very readily: “but—”

“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife — what’s the answer to that?”

“I suppose—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. “Bread-and-butter, of course.”

“She can’t do sums a bit!” the Queens said together, with great emphasis.

— Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass

…in other words…

If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand you don’t fatten your lambs by weighing them?

— Jonathan Kozol
at Westfield State College’s 157th Commencement

Continue reading In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…

Confession: I Am Not Good at Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

I want to tell you a story. Everyone likes a story, right? But at the heart of my story lies a confession that I am afraid will shock many readers. People assume that because I teach math, blog about math, give advice about math on internet forums, and present workshops about teaching math — because I do all this, I must be good at math.

Apply logic to that statement. The conclusion simply isn’t valid. …

Update: This post has moved.

Click here to read the new, expanded version

Project Follow Through Story Looks Interesting

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Project Follow Through was an almost-30-year study that compared the effect of different teaching methods on over 20,000 students nationwide. I have started reading The Outrage of Project Follow Through: 5 Million Failed Kids Later [site no longer exists, but try this book: Project Follow Through: A Case Study of Contingencies Influencing Instructional Practices of the Educational Establishment], which explains the research and its results in layman’s terms. So far, I have enjoyed the book, which is being released chapter-by-chapter every Monday. The introductory chapter will be available only for the remainder of this week, however, so if you are curious, you had better act now. I recommend downloading the pdf file to read at leisure: Right-click on the link for each chapter, then choose the “Save” option.

[Hat tip: D-Ed Reckoning, who is running a series of articles (part 1 here) highlighting his favorite parts of the book.]

Elementary Teacher Education

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Unfortunately, this is all too believable:

Received an email from a parent.

Not one of our students, but rather the parent of a high school student who plans to attend this university. The parent is looking for advice on how to get the kid out of math. Seems that the kid has already taken the bare minimum number of units of high school math needed for graduation and has stopped taking math. The parent is wondering if the kid can take some sort of test (before forgetting any more math) to fulfill the university’s math requirement.

Guess what career the kid is planning on? School teacher.

From Rudbeckia Hirta at Learning Curves.

It’s Elementary (School), My Dear Watson

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

From Time magazine, June 18, 1956:

“[M]athematics has the dubious honor of being the least popular subject in the curriculum… Future teachers pass through the elementary schools learning to detest mathematics… They return to the elementary school to teach a new generation to detest it.”

Quoted by George Polya in How to Solve It. I finally got my very own copy of this excellent book, so I can quit pestering the librarian to let me order it from library loan again…

Blogger Rudbeckia Hirta teaches math to pre-service teachers, and it seems that not much has changed since 1956. Hirta says the test answers shown were representative of her class — for instance, 25% of her students missed the juice problem. Too bad these students never read Polya’s book, in which he discusses a four-step method for solving problems. Step four is to look back and ask yourself whether the answer makes sense. Good advice!

Continue reading It’s Elementary (School), My Dear Watson

What is a Blog Carnival?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

The Carnival of Homeschooling is almost ready for its first birthday, and Henry at Why Homeschool is looking for submissions. So if you’re a homeschool blogger, go back over your recent blog posts and pick out a good one to share!

A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts loosely related to a given topic. Some, like the Carnival of Homeschooling, are posted weekly, while others come once a month or whenever the organizer gets around to doing it. Blog carnivals give bloggers a chance to reach a wider audience than just their regular readers, and they give readers interested in the topic a chance to access a wide variety of articles at once.

Continue reading What is a Blog Carnival?

The “Aha!” Factor

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

For young children, mathematical concepts are part of life’s daily adventure. A toddler’s mind grapples with understanding the threeness of three blocks or three fingers or one raisin plus two more raisins make three.

Most children enter school with a natural feel for mathematical ideas. They can count out forks and knives for the table, matching sets of silverware with the resident set of people. They know how to split up the last bit of birthday cake and make sure they get their fair share, even if they have to cut halves or thirds. They enjoy drawing circles and triangles, and they delight in scooping up volumes in the sandbox or bathtub.

Continue reading The “Aha!” Factor

So You Think You Know Calculus?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

Rudbeckia Hirta over at Learning Curves submits a great idea for a new TV blockbuster:

So You Think You Know Calculus?

I’ve read that Charlotte Mason used oral exams like this with her students, though of course without the pressure and sarcastic comments. I’d love to hear how this works in “real life.”

Continue reading So You Think You Know Calculus?