It’s slowly becoming apparent that math education is failing our students across the country. This could be for any number of reasons- shorter school days, an overextended curriculum, fewer math teachers available to teach the material, the increasingly shorter attention span of students. The list goes on.
Out here where 60% of our high school students failed an exit exam with no fractions on it, we’re up against an interesting problem- a series of adopted curricula (YouTube video) that does little to address communicating actual math to our elementary students, leaving them ill-equipped to deal to a high school math program that leaves even experienced math teachers wondering.
Until a national math curriculum can be agreed upon and implemented, we have to figure out how to address this growing problem. Being weak in math is absolutely crippling. So much of what we do is based in math. Daily activities like shopping or cooking require some understanding of decimals and fractions. Many careers, especially those in any science, engineering, or business discipline, are heavily steeped in algebra and trigonometry.
Letting it go isn’t acceptable, but letting it stay in its current state is doing today’s students a disservice. These are kids who would much rather understand what they’re doing, despite their protests, than continue moving on to higher math levels because it will supposedly raise their self-esteem. I can tell you from experience, socially promoting these kids frustrates them. They know they were promoted to stay with their peers, and an unusually high number of them resent it because they know they don’t uderstand the new math they have to learn because they don’t understand what’s it’s built on.
What can we do? We can work to help these students become stronger in the basics. Even if all you do is get workbooks in various grade levels and help your student work through them, you’re giving them a much better chance at succeeding in math education. I’ve also recently started a math blog that tries to cover various topics to help students struggling with thie r homework (or parents struggling to help their students with their homework).
Do something. Take action. Your student will really appreciate it, even if they never say it out loud.
Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility, Current Affairs at 8:11 AM EST
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Today is really going to just be about sharing some of the posts I’ve been reading lately. The other day I was thinking about the new class of educational toys. Today I’m thinking about computer and video games. This might be because I have my interview with the Art Institute this morning to discuss whether or not their Interactive Media program is a good fit for the shift I’m trying to push myself through. I suspect by the time it’s all said and done, she’s going to recommend I find a more technical school…but we’ll see.
Okay…recent games reading:
- Racial ambiguity in games- Like Mrs. Dewey, it appears that games are starting to feature characters that are designed in such a way that most people can find something to identify with. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought to identify myself with Mario or Lara Croft, but I think this is just awesome. Designing with multiculturalism in mind can open up what you can do with a game, but at the same time, it also runs the risk of breaking down cultural boundaries, and potentially making it okay to generate a homogeneous culture instead of celebrating what makes various cultures unique.
- Hotel Dusk: Novel or Game?- I’ve been working on figuring out the Change Your Own Adventure development process for what I hope will become a series of games where math will help determine your path through the story, so finding out about this one excited me. I’m going to have to see if I can pick up a copy to see how they did it. One of the potential benefits of a game like this is that it can either breed an interest in reading in kids who wouldn’t normally read for fun, or it could pull avid readers into gaming (thereby encouraging them to become more social).
- Today’s Homework: Make Good Games- I remember when I was in middle school, my life science teacher thought it would be fun for everyone to create games designed to help us study for a test. It was a lot of fun. We each worked on our own, and I think mine was a version of Monopoly with a trivia element to it. It was awesome because I got to design something, and just creating the game helped me study for the test. When I got to make the box of reading games for one of my teacher prep classes, I thought that was pretty cool, too. I love playing games. I love solving puzzles. I love creating treasure hunts. And I love creating games, even if my experience up until this CYOA one has been low-tech.
- Game over- Play again?- Okay, so I really like this one! When I was a kid playing Donkey Kong Junior and Mario, it was all about how wonderful the games were for teaching things like problem solving and hand-eye coordination for us less athletically gifted kids. Now, games are hailed for being able to draw people together socially as they work together on MMORPGs or through xBox Live. Even the Wii is already being praised for getting gamers off their couches. (And if you have yet to play with a Wii, I highly recommend it. It is more fun than any one person should be allowed to have indoors!) The one unsung skill taught by gaming, though, is the ability to make mistakes and be completely fine with it because you know you’ll get an other chance. It’s actually a subskill of the problem solving skill. You try something. You die. You think, ‘So next time, I’ll try this instead.’ Which you do. It kills you. Finally, you figure out the right solution, and you keep going. No fuss. No stress over doing it “wrong”. It’s just an attempt. Smart gamers carry this skill, like the others, in their back pocket to help them get through real life. And it’s true.
Gaming isn’t a panacea to all of education’s ills, but it can be great for reinforcing skill development. And I’m starting to see why I’m gravitating back toward it, just from an educator’s perspective.
Posted by Rebecca as Experiential Learning, Problem Solving, Games, Link Dump at 7:31 AM EST
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As my thoughts on my future try to narrow in on a plan and a back-up plan for my career shift, I’m finding my reading shifting away from e-portfolios and adult-centric e-learning to information architecture/literacy and K-12 media and games. The more I read, the more I think about things, the longer I’m at my current job, the more I want to get involved in creating products to help students acquire and review math skills. (Actually, I want to be involved in more than just math, but it’s what’s got me fired up for so many reasons.) Right now, I’m just trying to figure out how to position myself to move into that kind of work.
It’s quite the time to try to figure out how to shift to a different informal education niche. The education industry as a whole is going through a rather large shift that may involve sliding in and out of paradigms as it grows to accommodate the accelerated changes in our society. Children are able to reach out and learn in many different ways and from many different sources. With a little training, they can learn what sources can be trusted, and what sources should either be reinforced with information from other sources or discarded altogether.
But I digress from my actual reason for writing today. My point is that children love to explore. They love to learn initially. They like to copy what grown-ups do because they know that’s part of becoming a grown-up. They mimic. They make knowledge their own. They find their own ways of doing things.
More often than not, they do it at a rate that is faster than their parents are able to adapt to the current new world order. Think about it. I’m a member of the video game generation. While my parents enjoyed sitting down to play favorite games when we first got the Coleco, I was the one who played nearly every game we had. When I was given a Nintendo right after they came out, Mom and Dad had their games, but again, I was the one who played nearly all of them. Now, they IM me for help on the computer (even though Mom is far more computer savvy than she realizes). Along with my technological toys, I had my Fisher Price kitchen so I could pretend to cook like my mom. I had my blocks so I could try to make my own buildings. I had no end of art supplies so I could create my own works of art.
I had access to toys my parents couldn’t have imagined when they were kids, but they helped me be able to successfully navigate my way into the grown-up world I had to deal with. Today’s children are now doing the same thing- except their toys are kid-friendly computers, cell phones, and other technological toys. Where I learned to design with my Crayola caddy, they’re using Crayola products that can do far more than my crayons and markers ever could. Where I learned to write BASIC programs and draw in Paint (both of which i did toward the end of elementary school), these kids are learning their way around WYSIWYG editors and kid-friendly programs to create with a computer. Many of them move on to harder programs by the end of middle school.
The kids show the grown-ups how to use the “basic” technology toys in use. It’s because it’s the world they’re growing up into. They become familiar with these now so that they can be prepared to quickly adapt to newer technologies as they develop.
Are we stealing their childhood from them by allowing them access to these types of toys, or are we allowing them to explore, to play, to discover?
Inspired by this article
Posted by Rebecca as Experiential Learning, Problem Solving, Games at 8:08 AM EST
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I admit it- I’m trying to find myself, my niche, in a sea of e-learning, information architecture, and interactive media. I’m trying to understand all three, trying to figure out how to appropriately bundle my current skills and knowledge to move myself into one or more of these fields. I feel like I’m going insane.
And no hope of a possible mentor or sounding board in sight.
That would be the sound of my sanity running away.
I love reading posts on theories of information architecture practice, because I can see how they’ve applied to various work that I’ve done. In this particular case, though, I also found the comments interesting. The debate for template vs toolkit is one I’ve seen in so many areas. Perhaps it’s time we really explored the ramifications of the either/or mindset on this one so that every discipline can realize that a blended solution might be the most useful.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 7:47 AM EST
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When I first heard about Second Life, it was because a local university was starting to explore its uses as a virtual classroom. I was intrigued and wanted to explore it myself. Unfortunately, time and technology didn’t permit, and I completely forgot about it as I tried to pick up the pieces of my ruined graduate career.
The next time I heard about Second Life, it sounded like things were in full swing. Again, technology reared its ugly head, and I find myself still really wanting to explore the environment, see how learning takes place in this virtual, Snow Crash-esque realm. I don’t deny that it is possible some real learning is taking place. Given how much I’ve learned from the people I’ve encountered on my journeys through the internet, I can see a virtual meeting place being a great opportunity to share what you know, or pick someone else’s brain.
Now that my computer seems to have settled down, perhaps I should look into it again. If you ever see “Elizabeth Colville” wandering around, feel free to say hi. (I was so sad that with all the common surnames, I wasn’t able to create an avatar with my own name.)
Maybe once I’m able to play around in it, it’ll help me work toward resolving this little niche crisis I’ve been suffering.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized, e-learning, Games at 8:14 AM EST
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I love to read advice for those who train other trainers. It’s generally somewhat humorous, and completely applicable to training new teachers. At work, the task of training new teachers in certain subjects has fallen to me (and I get to train teachers in other subjects when the directors aren’t available). It’s quite the experience. More often than not, I’m much younger than the teacher I’m training, which just triggers one of my own personal issues. Most of these teachers also came from a classroom, where I came from a more unusual setting.
From where I sit (as the young trainer), it’s fairly intimidating.
From where the trainee sits, it’s a terrifying prospect. They’re given a basic training in how to manage our teaching method. If they’re lucky, they get an hour or two to watch a more experienced teacher (which keeps being me lately) actually teach our program, and then they’re turned loose. Many of them show fear in their first few hours of teaching, and I’ve always felt some sympathy for them. It’s tough to be thrown into a world that’s somewhat familiar while at the same time being completely foreign.
The majority of our teachers swim right on through into developing their own method for handling the situation, and they’re only too happy to share what works for them in staff meetings. It’s wonderful. Occasionally, we get one who sinks, afraid to approach the students, afraid of the recordkeeping associated with our teaching method, afraid to ask for help.
For some great tips on approaching Train-the-Trainer (or Teachers, in my case) sessions, check out this great article. Meanwhile, I have some training notes to tweak.
Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility at 7:46 AM EST
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Last month, I became so frustrated with the nature of math education in my state that a number of things happened.
First, I realized that more than just creating curriculum, I really want to develop ways for kids to learn or reinforce skills that they aren’t picking up in math class. That realization alone has helped focus my actions a bit more tightly as I try to learn how to get involved with developing educational game and interactive media. (Suggestions are welcome at this point, because right now I’m talking with potential leads.)
Second, it led to a fit of insanity and gave birth to the Dead Bunny blog. Currently, the Dead Bunny blog is focusing on sharing bite-sized math lessons that are inspired by my work with my own students. I’m having to learn how to represent so much of this in HTML, so it’s going fairly slowly. I’m also working on my first article, complete with art (which has been a nightmare unto itself).
In time, I’ll be adding writing lessons as well (I spend much of my time teaching writing to people I edit for.), and in time the articles and posts will get smoothed out into books.
It feels good to finally be doing something pro-active. I just want kids to have the best chance at success, and the math situation in this state isn’t giving them that.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 8:01 AM EST
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