Friday, October 16, 2009

Math Education Research



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What math education research have you found valuable?


  1. none of it. it's *all* about who gets funded
    and it's useless by design. one has understood
    for generations how to get the actual job done.
    coming up with better and better ways to lie
    about it demeans mathematics, learning,
    and life itself. maybe i'm just in a bad mood
    but i feel this way more often than not so
    there it is.

  2. I have to say that I work hard at teaching, and I don't know 'how to get the job done'. In my opinion, the best learning happens when it comes from within - when the student comes to the topic through their own passion.

    But in school classrooms, we try to get the topic to the students on some schedule. Are there good ways to do this?

    If most people in the U.S. are uncomfortable with math, I think there's a serious problem that needs solving. I don't know the solution, and reading these studies helps me think about it.

    How do you think we ought to go about getting the job done?

  3. And thank you for a thought-provoking reply! :^)

  4. you get it done... as you know very well...
    by listening to students not by listening
    to bosses. art vs. commerce. no mystery.

    people not understanding math
    is a problem for some *and*
    an opportunity for (many) others.

    as long as *we* play
    "what can we do for you?"
    the teams playing
    "what can you do for us?"
    will gladly take our lifetimes
    of service... but they
    won't change the rules of the game
    just because it's the right thing to do:
    this is *politics* for god sake.

    polite discourse forbids mentioning this.

    also race and class and money
    and all the things you have to talk about
    to say anything meaningful about "education".

    one is trying to save the world.
    too big a project. when the point
    is to help the person in front of me
    there are usually all *kinds* of
    available useful things to try
    and everybody knows this.

    how is everybody in this big useless
    disappointment machine gonna get paid though.

    also: passion is easily stimulated
    (or even simulated). *devotion*
    is what gets the payoffs.

    and *only* the already-well-off
    can *afford* to be devoted to
    "learning for its own sake".
    this is also very well known.
    and impolitic to mention.

  5. Hey Owen, I wasn't sure it was you in the first comment (anonymous, you know). Good points all, and not at all impolitic to mention here.

    How do I listen to 40 students at once? How do I deal with the travesty that is grading?

    I *did* get something out of Boaler. She gave me evidence that group work can be really valuable, that tracking is damaging, and that it's worth my time to try to learn how to manage groupwork better.

    I often wonder whether trying to teach problem-solving skills is useful. Schoenfeld gave me evidence that it is.

    I keep thinking about Devlin's thing about 'multiplication is *not* repeated addition'. I'm not sure that I agree about the importance of this. But the Russian stuff about starting out with measurement seems interesting, so I'm doing some of that with the kids at Wildcat.

    I do think all of the research I mentioned above (thumbs up) has had some effect on my practice. (Except the last, about elementary teachers, but if we get the grant that would have me teaching elementary teachers, then that will probably affect my practice also.)

    "Useless by design" goes too far, imo, but I'm interested in your take on the politics of research funding.

    Thanks for voicing your opinions. I value them even (especially?) when I don't agree.

  6. Hey Sue, thanks for letting me know about Schoenfeld and Boaler. I love Liping Ma's book. Did you want to make some plan for reading Wu's article together?

  7. Wanna discuss it next Friday? (Any time's ok with me. I've finished it.)

  8. I think you'd like Cognitively Guided Instruction (Carpenter and Fennema and someone else). They've done a nice book: Children's Mathematics (Heinneman) that's quite readable. (Low grade level)


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