Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Toxic Educational Practices-- a rogues gallery

Spiral Reviews for Mathematics

Wow.

SO many things wrong with that.

(Renzulli-- which is too-often shorthand for "bright not gifted" and enrichment using FLUFF, IMO; the notion that repetition is "necessary" for authentic learning; that learning is like the process of BURNING a track on a CD or something; multiple choice assessment as 50%-- or more-- of the 'assessment' associated... etc. etc.)

By the way, Connections Academy's new "Common Core" compliant mathematics program is using "spiral reviews" (as in the link) as a MANDATORY cornerstone of K-8 mathematics.

Revolting.

Please understand that I'm not objecting to this practice for typical students in mathematics-- but for those children who are clearly not working at their ability level within a classroom, either in level or rate. With a HG+ student, frankly, this entire thing sounds like the extraction of a pound of flesh.



Who else has examples of educational practices which may sound good in theory (or maybe not even then, LOL) but in pragmatic terms, seem to be operating in violation of everything that is known about educating HG students?

I'm only on the first page, but so far this does not inspire confidence:

"Practice doesn’t make perfect it makes permanent"

Go back to school, teach.

"Student’s pick-up their Spiral Review for the day when they
enter the classroom"

Of course, later ON, it appears as:

"Practice does not make perfect, it makes permenant"

I guess I should stop...

Grades, both kinds

the whole child.

it sounds so sensible, to think about the whole child! but it's funny how it gets used to avoid addressing specific concerns. "oh, but we must think of the Whole Child - what's the rush? she's such a little kid..."

Whole language reading.

Mathematics with no wrong answers.

This! In pre-k (4) he went in with math and reading at a 1st+ grade level, and in K (5) he was at a 2nd-3rd grade level in math (depending on topic) and reading at about 4th grade level (though he would much rather read picture books or encyclopedias not chapter books). I got sucked into the: the academics don't matter because he has them down pat, what really matters is balancing him out, the whole child must be developed and his behavior is horrible so we must focus on that for now, there is time later to teach him more math/science/reading.

In first grade I felt that I had made a mistake but we were at a new school and with a new teacher and she felt that we had to focus on behavior too, and I don't see that he made any progress last year at all, so how is that truly focusing on the whole child?

May I ask how that would work? Math is the one place I would think that pretty much everyone would realize there is only one (or more if appropriate) right answer and any other answer is wrong. To think I thought it was bad when they stopped keeping score in kids sports!

DH or I mis-spelled permanent in an email once, and our "permenant record" has since been filled with all sorts of examples of buffoonery in honour of the original misspelling. Every time we goof, the incident goes in the "permenant file" mentally while the permanent record remains spotless. Maybe those teachers are onto us! Maybe they use this trick, too, with their policies. If so, be verrrrry afraid.

On topic...
- Group work
- Peer mentoring/teaching