I've been reading Liping Ma's book "knowing and teaching elementary mathematics" and finding it fascinating, I'm planning I read the articles above too. It seems like there are endless trends about how to best teach basic math that make little or no difference when the people teaching have no more understanding of the concepts than they did during the previous fad. There are some startling examples in the book of manipulative or concrete examples being hopelessly counter productive.
My DDs teacher has just sent home the class newsletter and has apparently been at a conference on teaching math and is now convinced that its detrimental for young students to learn math by writing down algorithms before they can do double digit addition and subtraction in their heads... So now she's all about making sure she avoids writing things out with her 2nd graders... Whih will suit some kids really well, but seriously why do schools follow each new trend with such reckless abandonment? Where is the middle ground and balanced multi pronged approach?
