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Hi,
BoB, what grade in the U.S. is equivalent to Year 10 in the U.K? You have this question:
(16) I buy a magazine for 56p.
I give the shopkeeper 80p.
How much change should I get?
similar to the particial credit one in the previous post.
bobbym, one thing you need to know is that in our our educational system, we are increasely spend more money on whereever you can find excuses. We have the best technologies in the classrooms. The still high tech flat creen big TVs are being replaced with more expensive Whiteboards. We bought Wii for high schools. We have the highest expenses per student in the world.
Of cause, schools always ask for higher pays for their teachers in order to find better teachers.
Dear Katharine Beals,
Your left brain, right brain theory is intrigue. I was wondering if the visualized math tools can help half-Brain Children learn math. The best 3-D animated math tools I found is at
http://www.ftlmath.com
Look forward to your explainations. Thanks.
Hi bobbym and Bob,
Did you want to modify the advices you gave me after you read the articles? Essentially, my original question can be stated in another way: how to teach 10th grade math to 5th grade students?
Q: Thomas buys a stkateboard that is 2 feet long. What is the length, in inches, of the skateboard?
Show your work.
A: 24 + 24 = 48. The anser is 48 inches.
NY State gives half of the credit.
Hi,
As I dig into the topics of our discussions, I found an article talking about exactly what we have discussed here. It discusses essentially the same problem, but at a higher level, of solving "a new different word problem using the knowledge of old problem when the two problems are involving the same mathematical equation." The way to do it, it says, is to "teach students to connect the surface structure (distance of travelling, the speed, and time travelled) with the deep structure (algebra equation)".
Therefore, it claims that contrary to decades of cognitive research, critical thinking can actually be taught. I do not quite understand this and how that kind of teaching works. Would anyone enlighten me on this?
The article can be found at http://www.ftlmath.com/research.html
Thanks a lot.
Hi bobbym and Bob,
Thanks. bobbym's arguments are quite convincing. The root cause of 'parrot fashion' is people's laziness nature. People always want to achieve something with the least efforts. When you say "There is a lot there to think about", that must be true to many of us reading the postings. Yet only two of you responded, so teachers are lazy too.
Bob, when I say Uranus, you can take it as a compliment. Your teaching style is way above ours. On youtube, I have watched a lot of math videos from many teachers, who claim they are really good. Yet, none of the teachers I watched reach your level of pedagogical sophistication and soundness, with only one exception. Please take a look at the video to see if that teacher is doing the similar things as you do.
Here is the Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC2JtUFt-jE
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your detailed reply. You are in the Uranus Kingdom, we are on the Earth. There are a few top public high schools in each state may teach the Pythagoras the way you do. For most of us, no. First of all, you make more than one correct choice, which is much harder than only one correct choice question. Once you do that, the kids easily figure out your intention --- not helping them to pass the test by making the question harder than it is. They immediately hate you.
In my example, after I show the students how to solve
2x +3 = 7
In the test, I mistakenly put 7 = 2x + 3, some of them could not write anything. They said nobody taught them how to do it.
Second, many teachers cannot do the problem you gave themselves, not to mention to teach it. Teachers on our Earth planet are not really qualified to teach. You can see the links below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 … aths-tests
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_ … t_on_math/
The good news is: people are smart enough to survive any harsh reality. These are what our Earth people do:
Oregon will test 11th-graders using 10th-grade tests, so more students can do well.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/ind … ost_6.html
"States have dumbed down their tests to make it appear that more students are passing".
http://beta.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news … ate-exams/
We are united to make our education look good.
Do you mean that there are not many teachers in the forum? Well, the state is ranked one of the worst states to do business, so it is a good place to be from.
If you teach longer enough, you know what kinds of test questions your students can do well. You can easily make a test so the class average is around 90 and make another test the average is 80.
The problem is not that I don't know how to beef up the test, but if I beef up the tests a little, my students are not happy, their parents, who are powerful than I, are not happy. That's why I am worried about my job, because to them, I am not a good teacher.
My tests are easy, so everyone is happy and I become a good teacher and make a good living. The problem is, the students do not do well in the state tests.
So one question I want to ask everyone is: how do you teach students to solve one problem so that they can solve another one -- the same problem but with diferent numbers plugged in after a few weeks?
Hi bobbym,
Some of my colleagues may be in the forum, but people can search easily on the internet anyway, so I'd prefer not to disclose my school. In that way, people can tell their true thoughts without being worried about their jobs. In any event, I am in the state of New York, where deficits are huge, taxes are high, private new jobs are scarce, and school budgets are being cut.
I make tests based on what the students already learned in class. If I give a little different, but I don't think more challenging, just the same problems with different wordings or numbers, they quickly give me bad looks. I am a little worried about my job.
Hi everyone,
I am new here. I know math, but have trouble teaching math at K-9 to K-12 level.
The problem is that my students on average do well on my tests, but do terribly on the tests given by other teachers or the state exams. Can anyone help me?
Thanks.
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