Dr. Boaler argues that there are few general math principles that students need to understand. Students often struggle with math because they get caught up in memorizing details and procedures. With this kind of approach math is less about how many questions you can get right, and more about the knowledge and understanding that go behind the mathematical solutions you arrive at. Principles such as student intuition, making sense, and finding ways to represent problems can all contribute to a student's understanding of the big ideas.
Although I do agree with all of the basic concepts represented in this video there are some structural problems with how I feel this is implemented in an education system. Firstly I feel like this outlook, that knowing big ideas about math, is less testable. At least in the old fashion sense of math tests filling in multiple choice responses. As that method does not allow the student to show their thought process and their knowledge and understanding of wider math ideas.
It should not come to any student teacher's surprise that Ontario students are struggling in math, according to EQAO testing. With only half of grade 6 students meeting the provincial standard in math. This is very worrying, and it does not surprise me that Ontario boards are starting to emphasize math competencies more in students and educators. However, I wonder if teaching students big math ideas are really assisting them in math, according to EQAO it might not be.This is not to say that it is a bad idea, but that EQAO might be ill equipped to assess this kind of knowledge from students.
Hi Michael! Great post! I thought you made some really strong connections from theory to application. It is rather interesting how the scores are so low, and perhaps that is a result of moving from more of standardize testing math to the big ideas. However, I know EQAO questions are changing too. Although some are still multiple choice, they also have more open-ended questions allowing students to use their intuition and think about the big idea. It would be interesting to see if students are struggling with the multiple choice area or the open-ended. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMichael, Thanks for including the article about Ontario students falling flat in their math scores according to EQAO testing. As a future educator, it is concerning. Although I agree with Dr. Boaler's argument that students should learn and understand a few math principles rather than memorizing, there are still too many students struggling in mathematics. Raychel makes a great point when she questions whether students are having difficulty with multiple choice or open-ended questions on the EQAO tests. In my opinion, this should receive some attention to determine if this contributes to the low scores. Personally, I think that those in charge must dig deeper into how mind-set, self-efficacy, speed, stereotyping, misconceptions, anxiety and making mistakes in math influence perceptions about this subject. The online videos and activities certainly highlight these concerns and will help us as new teachers with strategies and planning instruction to diminish such negativity.
ReplyDeleteHi Michael, Great post this week and connection to the concerns of the falling math scores in regards to Ontario students. I also think it is great that the Ontario boards are finally starting to emphasize math competencies more for students and educators. Expanding math questions, especially on EQAO's, from multiple choice answers to allowing students to show there thought process and work out the math problem would be much more beneficial I believe to students overall learning. Hopefully we as future teachers can assist our students to understanding the concepts and knowing how to show how they got to their final answers, instead of adding to the fear of making mistakes in math.
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Rachel
Hi Michael, thanks for such an informative post! It's interesting to read about the EQAO test results in regards to students in Ontario. While I do believe memorization based skills are easier to assess, (as you mentioned), I do think that having a grasp of big ideas and concepts is important, and would help guide students to solving similar problems they encounter in the future. As educators, this will be our biggest task - tackling that perfect balance of emphasizing memorization in certain areas, while also encouraging enduring understandings. I always enjoyed math more when I understood it, and consequently felt unmotivated in solving problems that solely depended on memorization. How do you think we can have our students see the lasting benefit to this approach of "Big Idea" understanding?
ReplyDeleteMichael, you brought up a very thought provoking point when you questioned how testable the big ideas in math are. This is an important point because we need to be able to accurately evaluate our students' performance, and also have them understand where their weaknesses are. My assumption has always been that we would test a student's understanding of the big ideas through assessing their ability to solve a variety of various math questions and/or word problems. I think that old fashioned quizzes and tests can be used to assess whether the exploratory learning and inquiry that students do during a unit has been effective, and whether the students are meeting the EQAO standards. I wonder what reasons a teacher would have for not using tests to assess and evaluate student learning.
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