Re: Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
Uploaded by: websnarf
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Timing out some of the methods shown in the video I am responding to. http://www.wheresthemath.com/
Tags for this video: An calculators division Education elementary Inconvenient Math mathematics multiplication outsourcing Truth
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There is no quick or easy division algorithm; the TERC method does not help in any way. Better that there is one standard one that works and is checkable.
If these people were serious about showing better methods, they would show the Karatsuba method, which is known to be far superior to all these methods (including the standard method).
Karatsuba requires an *understanding* of algebra in the same way that the TERC method does.
An example of their stupidity: They consider solving 2-digit multiplication to be a unique benchmark of computational fluency. There is no difference between 2 digit and 10 digit multiplication!
They then ask for students to explain why (a/2)*(2*b) = a*b without teaching fractions.
The harm being perpetrated on the younger generation is infuriating.
This curriculum is based on research about how students learn. You are basing your conclusions based on your personal opinion that is not grounded in empirical work. Thus, your reasoning cannot be supported. You speak from a position of ignorance.
I am not a teacher, so I don't know how to deal with children behavioral problems but I do understand arithmetic and remember how I learned it. I learned 2 digit simultaneously with any multi-digit multiplication. There was no distinction in teaching it because there is no distinction in the actual math of it or the algorithm.
Other westernized countries teach the standard method and they perform better than American schools that don't.
There *ARE* empirical studies that show that Washington's students (where TERC is being used) are failing relative to other states and the US failing relative to Europe.
I have seen studies in child learning and they are a joke. We don't understand it well enough to run experiments like this.
30 x 26... is 260 three times... 250+250 is 500... add 20... 260 more is 780. add 31... done
Whatever works I say.
Other westernized countries (high performing) actually talk about mathematical ideas. We don't in the US. One researcher said, after viewing math instruction in the US "I don't see the math"
I don't know what studies you're referring to. How about looking at a synthesis of reserch such as "How Students Learn" by the National Research Council. The TERC materials employ the recommendations and research in this document. Or look at "Adding it Up"
If I understand different ways of how an arithmetic problem breaks down, how does it help if I don't know if I am right, or how I might check my work?
Where did you get that 20 from in the above? Is it 2*(260-250) which you didn't write down? If your arithmetic gets longer or more complicated it just gets worse.
31x26
30x26 (hold onto 26)
3x 260
250 two times is 500... plus the 2 10s I left out...
500+20+260 is 780
take that last 26 and you have 806.
31 x 26 = (30 + 1)*(25 + 1) = 30 * 25 + 30 + 25 + 1 = 750 + 55 + 1 = 806.
Which is a way of encoding the identity (a + b)*(c + d) = a*c + a*d + b*c + b*d via some "understanding". Which is interesting, but worthless to a student not yet ready for algebra.
Math sooner or later must become a subject you do with a paper and pencil. What exactly are you planning to gain by delaying this?