Comments on: “You Can Always Add. You Can’t Subtract.” Ctd.

By: Table Talk | Reflections in the Why

Table Talk | Reflections in the Why — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:13:46 +0000

[…] “You Can Always Add. You Can’t Subtract.” Ctd. by Dan […]

By: Reading Assignment 10/12/14 | Multiple Factors

Reading Assignment 10/12/14 | Multiple Factors — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 15:26:17 +0000

[…] You Can Always Add. You Can’t Subtract What a lovely concept! I was sold immediately by the “informal dialogue” in the first. If students are talking about math, they are learning way more than they would if they had to just immediately start calculating. […]

By: Tim McCaffrey

Tim McCaffrey — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 05:56:34 +0000

As much as possible, I try to set up the problem so students are problem solving without any math. Ie, I want them first to think about “what would make sense” before bringing in the numbers.

As was suggested earlier, make the student editions stripped of all its meat. Most publishers offer disposable books, so why not print student editions where the question(s) and scenarios can be developed in a more natural way? This sounds like a fun experiment.

By: Raymond Johnson

Raymond Johnson — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:20:20 +0000

FYI: There are some nice professional development materials for revising “structured” problems to make them “unstructured” on the PRIMAS site (http://www.primas-project.eu/artikel/en/1044/Tackling+unstructured+problems/view.do?lang=en), a Europe-focused resource from the Shell Centre.

By: dg reid

dg reid — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:30:47 +0000

There are many problems with textbooks beyond the ‘scaffolding’ cited, but let’s not assume they are all bad. The question is ‘how do I cover a topic in a structured fashion in a limited amount of time?’ Student discussion is great, but, darn, there’s the bell. How many lectures have you attended where the lecturer said, “Well, we are out of time. If you have further questions, try to catch me in my office.” My own experience is to teach the higher level abstracts in class, and leave detailed exercises for afterwards.

By: Alanna Dushok

Alanna Dushok — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 12:10:46 +0000

I agree with @Kyle regarding literacy. My school is slated to gain (net) 11 ELL students for each month for the remainder of the school year as per estimates from the ELL office. Many of these students have few (if any) English skills, so using problems with little or no reading components can actually help better assess the math skills that the students are coming with into the classroom. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the percent of ELL students is growing in several states in the West, including Texas (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp). Given Texas’ standing as one of the largest adopters of textbooks, perhaps the ever-increasing ELL population will (eventually) cause a textbook overhaul that includes less text in order to better support all learners.

By: Kyle Pearce

Kyle Pearce — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 01:47:50 +0000

Something else that came up in discussion today was not only the fact that the amount of text in a problem can kill great thinking and discussion before it begins, but it also introduces an extraneous variable that can get in the way of learning math. It is common that students who struggle the most, also struggle with literacy skills.

When we layer problems with a huge blanket of text, their inability to start may have more to do with the words than the numbers. Using more visuals in class – including 3 act math tasks – has really helped me better identify student learning needs related to the “math” in my classroom.

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:15:53 +0000

@Grant, Kyle summarizes the problem well, I think:

One of the main problems with print is the idea of maximizing profit. That usually means squeezing in as much information on as few pages as possible.

It's common to find part (c) of a problem providing the answer to part (a), or to find a given graph more suited for the last part of a task than the first. Good tasks are possible in print, but even the most progressive textbooks have to reckon with its cost and weight.

By: Norma Gordon

Norma Gordon — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:59:48 +0000

@Dan thank you for sharing this (and many other) threads. Less is more! We need to recapture student imagination – get back to “seeing the ripples” you wrote about recently. We’re aiming for the same with CueThink. That is the mindset behind much of our initial seed content. Here’s one example – “Shari says that all prime numbers are odd. Glenn says all odd numbers are prime. What do YOU say?” We’re seeing student engagement and teacher “ah ha’s” when they recognize problems presented in this manner are accessible to ALL students. We intend to continue building scaffolds to promote thinking, deeper learning and peer-to-peer conversation. #makemathsocial, if you will.

By: Patrick Honner

Patrick Honner — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:04:06 +0000

When I look at the tasks and problem sets of newer teachers my initial reaction is often, “Wow. That’s a lot of text.”

You raise an interesting point about the limitations of print here, and how this could be an opportunity for technology to do some good. I think ideally we want students to build the scaffolding themselves, but delaying it (or adapting it?) could be a step in the process.

I’m curious to hear more about what Grant has to say on the matter. As you point out, the Shell Centre stuff is great–what more can a textbook do to promote this without filling in the details?