Originally Posted by kcab
There's a lot of debate, certainly.

I'm not sure the article you quoted is correct on this though - I thought MA was basically leading the nation at this point, due to its high (and high stakes) standards.

Originally Posted by Wren
These are the reasons that TERC and Everyday Mathematics are no longer permitted in the public schools of California which now leads the nation in Math education.

I hope California isn't leading the nation in math education. This page has a few sample questions from the exam; note that numerical answers are not required for each question:



Sample questions on CA exit exam

My kids are at a private school that uses Everyday Mathematics(EM). I've analyzed the program pretty carefully. EM is part of a new overall wave in education that aims to teach concepts before details. This wave is beginning to make its way into colleges, which I think is dangerous.

The idea of teaching concepts first is seductive, but I think it ultimately fails. For example, EM works hard to avoid traditional algorithmic approaches to learning how to manipulate numbers.

Instead, EM uses concept-based approaches. One is "Rule-in, Rule-out." The EM book gives a rule (input: "+2") and the kids give the answer (output: add 2 to some numbers they provide). From what I can figure, EM is trying to teach the concept of functions/domains/ranges here. This is seductive because the program can claim to be teaching high level "critical thinking skills."

Thing is, to me, it all seems a bit abstract for a first grader. Many of these kids are still learning what addition and subtraction are. How can they be expected to abstract the idea of functions what they still don't fully understand ideas about simple mathematical operations? To me, this is a case of trying to get a kid to figure out what a forest is before he really knows what trees and animals are.

And even if a 6-year-old is ready to understand what a function is, I think it's better to be explicit about it and then use examples. I taught my eldest about exponents by providing a definition ("It's a fast way of multiplying. The little number up high tells you how many times to multiply the other number by itself") and then examples. Then we did square roots by working backwards from there.

But of course, the vast, vast majority of 6-year-olds are not ready to understand f(x), its domain, and its range.

This is one reason why I think EM and similar approaches fail and leave American students clueless about mathematics.

Val