Posting the standard every day

Love it! Helps them focus their mind on what they're doing for the day, probably allows their brain to start bringing up prior knowledge, and in general, gives a structure for their brain to retain the information around.

 

This is fruitless. He's hearing but not listening. How unfortunate.

 

Let me give you a little help on how to not make it into a public versus private debate. See that word after "when" and before "middle". Yeah, just cut that out of there, and then you won't need the stuff before the first comma either. Easy game, huh?

 

I have a Single Subject teaching credential in math, which certifies me to teach math for grades 6-12. I’ve also had considerable success teaching younger students, though I cannot teach in an official capacity as I’m not certified to teach the lower grade levels. This does not stop parents requesting me to private tutor them, however, and their math skills become noticeably enhanced thereafter. That’s what I base my comments on. I’ve been private tutoring for almost ten years and have a very large clientele base.

 

Correct. I meant comment. I thought I saw two question marks.

 

And I have a degree in math, K-8 Cert, and a secondary (4-12? or 6-12? I forgot haha) endorsement for math, which allows me to technically teach high school, like you. That said, I know that my experience has lended itself moreso to elementary, so I know that that is my strength and area of expertise. I've tutored a couple high schoolers and written high-level math competitions, but again, my experience (especially within standards/curriculum) is mainly elementary.

 

Let me show you how you are: When I first meet a client, I ask them to show me how they have been taught to do something before I show them my methods. I shake my head if I see them trying to solve a problem using the tedious and ridiculous algorithms they were taught in public schools because it’s very time consuming and they are only solving it the way they memorized to do it. They actually don’t understand what it is they’re doing. I, personally, don’t use ever use Common Core Math instructional methods.

Get it now?

 

Well, I’ve never had transfers from private schools who were taught this stuff.

 

(They really need to get rid of these smileys...it's a bad temptation.)

 

No. Common Core consists of standards, not instructional methods. They are different entities. I’ve taught with many sets of standards during my years in education. Not a single set of standards ever included a particular instructional method. Common Core is no different.

 

I feel so bad, haha. I just am responding to people misinterpreting my posts. They should all be read an explicitly stated. I mean what I say and say what I am.

 

I know Common Core is a set of standards. I should have more careful when my words with I said “Common Core Math instructional methods.” Would it be more proper to say instructional methods as outlined in various Common Core Math texts?

 

So???? If you don't want to make it public vs private, why even mention where they are transferring from?

 

Because I’m addressing primarily public school teachers. Though, it is not necessary to say where they have transferred from, but it’s still incredibly frustrating for my colleagues and me because we constantly have to undo what some students were taught and bring them up to speed. It’s a lot of work and they should have mastered the material they previously learned wherever it is they came from, public or private.

College professors and universities are saying the same thing: High school students are woefully unprepared for college-level writing and math. Something has to change, and that something starts when they are in elementary.

 

I would leave Common Core out of it completely. It is a math text aligned to Common Core standards. The methods these texts choose to teach the standards are not all the same. If they were all the same then there wouldn’t need to be so many choices in textbooks.

 

Oh, I see. I think my confusion with the labeling is that the textbooks that my school uses (for different subjects) all say “aligned or adapted to CCSS” and use methods I learned in my earlier youth, but the texts that I despise merely say Common Core and not adapted to Common Core. That’s why I thought the instructional methods were specific to Common Core. Does that make sense?

For example:

https://www.amazon.com/Common-Core-Math-Grade-7/dp/1629502375

https://books.google.com/books/abou...BAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button

 

Since we are completely off topic, by very nature of a student transferring to a different school that would mean they moved their home and thus came to your school or they weren't connecting with their education and teacher at their previous school, so they came to your school. That said, private schools receive students who are woefully unprepared from public schools and it is our job in the private sector to help them get where they should go. Conversely, I know of certainty that private school kids arrive at public schools woefully unprepared for their new public school, and it is up to the public school teacher to help get them where they ought to go. Sometimes we are receiving the students hoping that whatever wasn't working in school 1 will go better in school 2. I think we do a disservice to all teachers when we make the circular firing squad.

You like Common Core, someone else doesn't. You hate lousy methods that someone else holds dear. Someone else despises the methods that you find to be amazing. Instead of being divisive and sniping at one another, can we just enjoy the beauty of diversity in education. Obviously, we each have an education and philosophy and set of experiences that helps us as we form our daily strategy with our students. That doesn't mean it is the only way to help students come to a full understanding of math or reading. It just means that someone who loves their class gives it all they have, day after day, and finds things to reach their students.

I am a private sector teacher who has great admiration and respect for the public and charter sectors. I feel they accord me the same respect. We can be different AND effective for OUR students. I like everyone to share what they do because I can learn from that, but it is not enjoyable to read that you/they/someone is the only authority with the only true educational successful classroom. You are working with your kids. I'm working with mine. At the end of the day, if they can all read, write, communicate, add, subtract, multiply and divide and if they all know how to be kind, even if the other person isn't like them, then we should all congratulate one another.

I say this with regard and respect, but hasn't this gotten a little less than supportive? Let's get the discussion back on track.

I'm required to post objectives. I do so. I reference it every class period. I don't know if it helps students or not, but I know that if it helps one, I'm glad it did!

 

These two examples are not textbooks. They're both teacher workbook resources (ancillary materials) that have nothing to do with district-adopted materials.

 

And that’s why I’m suggesting that you do your research before forming an opinion, future. Your experience tutoring elementary students clearly hasn’t given you enough information to make an informed opinion.

 

This is fair. I referenced these texts because when I asked the elementary students and above to get out their textbooks, they produced those books only and said that’s all their teacher uses. This happened each time I tutored these students and so I thought that’s what the texts must be after many repeated incidences of that. I wasn’t given any other information than that and so I had no other frame of reference.

 

Well, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m not the one confusing standards with instructional methods or instructional materials.

I see parents frequently talk about “Common Core Math” not making any sense, when they are actually talking about the instructional methods. Math is still math. It hasn’t changed. These aren’t, however, people with education degrees, nor are they people who have been a student in recent years.

 

If only the Holyoke knew the Pandora's box this thread would become!!

 

You seem to keep bringing up standards and we are passed that. There seems to be some disconnect here. I was initially conflating Common Core Math and instructional methods aligned to said standards, not the standards themselves.

You’re right, math is math. BUT, Advanced Math has changed as there are more discoveries made each year. Be that as it may, modern societies have flourished for millennia without the use of these bizarre methods that have come about in relatively recent years. Technology advanced and many discoveries have been made without them and will continue to be without them. Do you think the makers of the atom bomb learned it this way? What about the designers of the space satellites? Do you think they learned it this way? What about engineers who build computer software and bridges? Do you think they learned it this way?

I have always been good at math and never scored anything less than the 99% percentile in math and I *never* learned it this way. People have learned math since it’s inception without these peculiar and frankly bizarre methods, so there was no need to adopt them. Only in America is basic arithmetic and Algebra 2 seen as advanced.

 

Come on, @futuremathsprof ...one of the books you referenced is simply a bunch of brief daily warm-ups. You had to have known that wasn't the child's textbook. Smh.

 

Well, when the children say their teachers don’t use any other books for math and that is the only book I have at my disposal, what am I supposed to think? A textbook, to me, is the book primarily used for instruction in a course. That workbook was the primary book utilized. Hence, my conclusion.

 

I remember you saying in another thread how important you think technology is for teaching. People learned without technology for millennia too.

Is your argument that we should just be teaching the same way they did way back in the day?

 

If I tutor, I tend to ask an adult or the teacher, not necessarily trust 100% of my knowledge from the 10 year old (+/- whatever number of years).

And do you have proof, outside of your biased eyes (not meant negatively, but rather objectively), that performance in math has waned over the decades?

 

You are partially correct concerning your first point. I basically said technology is important as an instructional aid because students’ lives are dependent on it and because of its wide use of applications.

Ima Teacher said that math hasn’t changed and so I agreed and said there is no need to fix was isn’t broken. Societies the world over have done just fine without the methods I disdain. There is a reason for that and that is that the old methods work. Do you think employers use my methods or the instructional methods from these wacky texts?

 

Here's a great article that seems to well-address both sides of this discussion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html

It's a long, long read, and I'm still just 3/4 into it, but ran upon this:

"Left to their own devices, teachers are once again trying to incorporate new ideas into old scripts, often botching them in the process. One especially nonsensical result stems from the Common Core’s suggestion that students not just find answers but also “illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models.” The idea of utilizing arrays of dots makes sense in the hands of a skilled teacher, who can use them to help a student understand how multiplication actually works. For example, a teacher trying to explain multiplication might ask a student to first draw three rows of dots with two dots in each row and then imagine what the picture would look like with three or four or five dots in each row. Guiding the student through the exercise, the teacher could help her see that each march up the times table (3x2, 3x3, 3x4) just means adding another dot per row. But if a teacher doesn’t use the dots to illustrate bigger ideas, they become just another meaningless exercise. Instead of memorizing familiar steps, students now practice even stranger rituals, like drawing dots only to count them or breaking simple addition problems into complicated forms (62+26, for example, must become 60+2+20+6) without understanding why. This can make for even poorer math students. “In the hands of unprepared teachers,” Lampert says, “alternative algorithms are worse than just teaching them standard algorithms.”"

 

Yes, student test scores now compared with those in the past. If you look back to the 20th century, students performed much higher in math. And do you really have to ask when like 20% of students or lower in numerous states pass math on state tests? Or you can look at the fact that community colleges are doing away with the Intermediate Algebra 2 requirement because it was “so difficult” for students to pass.

 

I think they use computers to do all of the basic computations we are discussing.

 

Employers don’t use math methods. They just expect their employees to be able to reason and problem solve. I’ve never heard of an employer requiring a specific mathematical strategy from an employee.

Aside from that, today’s students will be tomorrow’s employers. They’ll use what they know works for them. The whole point of the new methods are to emphasize that a variety of strategies and creative ways of thinking can all lead to the same mathematically correct answer. No longer do people have to blindly follow procedural rules without an understanding of why they work.

 

Yes, but they still have to do computations for blueprints and when taking measurements and mapping out schedules time wise or checking their finance calculations and a plethora of other ways. Excel sheets can do the math but you still have to know the algebra to input the formula correctly. There is still mathematical logic involved.

 

There are other variables to consider besides the instructional methods. Surely you knew that.

 

You don’t think CEOs and Board Members perform statistics analysis and/or run computer diagnostics and such. They look at complex data all the time. They actually do a ton of math in a variety of different forms.

 

Could we "pause" and all read the article? Honestly, I think it captures what many of us are thinking and does a better job than any one of us can in helping us see the interconnectedness of what we're all seeing from our various perspectives and why we're seeing it.

 

Sure, but they’re likely using computers for that. They aren’t going to require that their employee use the standard algorithm over partial products to multiply.

 

Instructional methods used play a large part in whether students understand the math or they don’t. Surely you knew that.

 

I did. But I also know that he demographics have largely changed in the past 20 years, as have the tests. Those changes should be factored in as much as changing instructional methods.

 

More over, I kinda think everyone should just take a step back and realize that the horse has been beat into the ground and it is now a bloody pulp of what used to be...