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Jan
16
Math is so confusing-sometimes you have to add and sometimes you have to subtract
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I’ve written here about homework before. Homework is a contentious issue. How much is the right amount? Should we be giving homework at all? ASCD’s most recent issue of ASCD Express features thoughts on homework by various authors. I’m really pleased to say that the article I submitted “Differentiating Homework” is included in the issue. If you have a moment and are interested in the homework question, you can access the articles here . Lots of food for thought and discussion in the staff room.
Now, I’m going to move from thoughts about homework to thoughts about math.
“Math is so confusing- sometimes you have to add and sometimes you have to subtract’.” Granddaughter #1 who was in grade one at the time and I were having a conversation about life in general when she came up with that valuable insight. She’s is in grade three now and tells me she loves geometry because she got to build a castle out of clay using the different geometric shapes and promptly went on to name them all very proudly. She’s not confused anymore. Now, she gets math. She’s into crafts and loves making things so this was a great activity for her. As teachers, we need to do more to match the learner’s strengths with the topic at hand.
Some of the students I teach at the high school level are still confused about what to do when faced with a math problem. Earlier here I wrote about kindergarten math being the best predictor about future achievement. Understanding math early in a child’s school career is really important, and yet so many kids are still confused about math when they reach high school. The results of the EQAO math test, the Ontario provincial math test given to nine students make that clear. Only 35% of grade nine students in the applied stream were able to achieve the ministry standard of level 3 or 75%. 88% of students in the academic stream were able to meet or exceed the ministry standard. Why are so many of the students in the applied stream having so much trouble with math? That’s very good question? I think little Granddaughter #! has the answer- math is so confusing for them
I was on the school’s Math Literacy Data Analysis Committee (what a mouthful) which among other things looked at the math questions on the provincial test that the students in the applied level classes were finding difficult. The committee determined that students in the applied stream had difficulty applying what they knew. They knew lots of math facts, but didn’t know how or when to apply them.
We need to help students make more sense of math. In his article Making sense out of teaching mathematics , Bruce Lieberman writes about a program called Cognitively Guided Instruction that is helping kids make sense out of math. CGI is
A teaching philosophy for elementary school math that builds on a child’s natural problem-solving abilities.
Why does this approach work? Diane Brown who is on leave this year studying math education at San Diego State University maintains it works
because it builds on what children already know about math when they come to school.
Most know how to count. They know what it means to get more toys or treats, so they have a basic concept of addition. They know what it means to lose something, or subtraction. And they know the meaning of sharing, which requires division.
She goes on to say that
Traditional textbooks lean heavily on learning rules to add, multiply and divide. Think about those work sheets with problems like “11 times 36” and “17 divided by four.” Children have a better chance of understanding what those problems mean if they develop a sense of how numbers can be manipulated rather than merely memorizing a set of rules.
Although I don’t teach primary school aged kids, what Brown says makes perfect sense to me in my high school classroom. Kids know the facts and know the rules, but can’t manipulate them to apply them.
The Cognitively Guided Instruction program is geared to kids up to grade six. If you are interested in finding out more about the Cognitively Guided Instruction program the The Promising Practices Network has rated the program as promising and gives more details about it.
I ‘m also optimistic about a computer software program that I recently found out about called The Academy of Math .
The Academy of Math is
Proven to deliver significant gains, the Academy of MATH® is a reader-friendly math intervention software solution that helps at-risk elementary, middle and high school students develop computational fluency.
Using a patented methodology that incorporates an adaptive intervention engine and positive motivation principles, the Academy of MATH builds foundation math skills for beginner through to algebra-ready students in 10 skill areas that align to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards.
If you are interested in knowing more , please check out the website for more details by clicking on the link I’ve provided. The Academy of Math can be used at home as well as at school so parents might be interested in it as well as teachers.
All the special education teachers at our school had the opportunity to participate in a live on-line presentation. That was cool because we got to ask questions. The Academy of Math looks very promising, especially since it claims that a student’s mathematical achievement level can improve by two grade levels in the relatively short time of 11 weeks. If I remember correctly, it takes 3, 30 minute sessions for 11 weeks to improve a students achievement by two grades. That’s absolutely amazing! I’ve been encouraging our math head and the head of Alternative Programs to share the expense of getting it for our school so that kids with weak math skills could use the program to fill in the gaps and make math less confusing for them. Come to think of it, there’s lots of math in science and geography as well, so those departments could help share the expense because it would help their students do better as well. I’ll have to keep checking to see what’s happening with my suggestion. There’s so many good initiatives going on at our school, I don’t want this one to get lost.
There is also an Academy of Reading to help kids improve their reading skills that works along the same lines. I don’t know as much about it, but I intend to find out about it as well. What makes both of these programs great for teachers is that there’s not a lot of time consuming record keeping to be done. The program does it for us. I like that. I don’t need any more paper work. Thank you very much.
We’re coming to the end of first semester and it’s kind of bitter sweet. I look forward to the new start in second semester, but I’ll miss the semester 1 kids. I feel I’ve finally got to know them well enough to know what will work in the classroom and what won’t. I’m going to try some new tings with my semester two kids and that’s exciting. I’ve got a couple of weeks to get it all organized.
Mathew has organized a Digital Story Telling carnival and the timing couldn’t be better. I’ve already taken a peak at bjennings’ article “A camera for your classroom”. I know nothing about anything and his article really helped. I’m going to take some time toread all the contributions so that I can get up to speed on the topic of digital story telling in the classroom.
Before I close, I want to thank Sukhdeep, Kelly, Doug Belshaw, John, Mathew, Meka and Rebbeca for leaving a comment. I really enjoy hearing what you have to say to me and to one another. By the way, I’m pleased to say that Doug Belshaw’s hiatus is over and he’s back blogging with a new site, with a new name and renewed enthusiasm. Good!
I’d also like to invite you to participate in Kevin’s “Day in a Sentence”. I participated for the first time last week thanks to Mathew’s invitation. He was the guest host for “Day in a Sentence” last week. Actually, I found great fun to participate and to see what kind of week other people had. Although, I have to admit at first it was a bit of a challenge coming up with one sentence to describe my week. Those of you who know me, will know that I usually don’t stop at one sentence while writing or speaking. I definitely need the practice! It was also interesting to see what kind of week other people had.
Finally, I do hope this coming week will find you peaceful, at ease and filled with happiness.
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4 Responses to “Math is so confusing-sometimes you have to add and sometimes you have to subtract”
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Math is confusing, bla,bla,bla.Headline scares people who want to do math.
Check jeka-math.blogspot.com , there are some nice math problems there, and few of them are quite tricky.
Maki,
Math is confusing for some people. What can I say. I’m not trying to scare people. I’m trying to make it less confusing for students who find it so. Everyone has different strengths. Not everyone loves math puzzles just like not everyone enjoys doing word searches.
I visited your site and I think your math puzzles are great for people who love doing math puzzles. I will share your site with others. Thanks for posting the puzzles and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment here.
Elona
I am glad to have you as part of the Day in a Sentence community.
Thanks for participating!
Kevin
Kevin,
Thanks for inviting me.