Idaho Hopes to Improve Math Instruction -- HERE
Idaho hopes to improve math instruction
- The Associated Press
Edition Date: 06/20/08
.......Brendefur has patterned his approach on research on Dutch arithmetic instruction and has already brought math instruction training to a few Idaho schools. He has now been asked to transform his small program into a statewide plan.
"It is daunting," Brendefur told the Idaho Statesman.
The state wants every math teacher trained within five years and has agreed to pay for the training for teachers who complete the program within three years. Teachers who do not complete the training in that time must foot the bill.
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Under the old way, teachers would present math as abstract numbers and ask students to relate the numbers back to real life with "word problems."
Using Brendefur's approach, teachers shouldn't tell kids how to do math, but build problems they can understand and teach them why and how math works.
This is interesting - this is the mysterious Mathematics in Context which has quietly infected Bellingham and Romberg was paid almost $2 million. The players in this little fiasco begin with the Freudenthal Institute and end at the Maharishi University in Indiana where Eric Hart (Core Plus) is currently working on a new curriculum, appropriately named Vedic Math.
ReplyDeleteMichael Scriven (Melbourne) briefed the DOE exemplary textbook committee and he, along with the Heurtals at SRI researched ESP back in the 50's - theory of socially constructed truth - and this forms some of the framework behind the writing of the reform textbooks, which put mathematics ideas in a moral context. So for instance, you have units currently being written and 'tested' in Grand Rapids using the OJ Simpson trial as the context.