The video is entertaining as well as instructive and thought-provoking. Take a look and leave a comment on whether it stimulates any thoughts around teaching in your discipline.
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Friday, March 4, 2011
Math ( and other) Curriculum Makeover
I watched a really interesting video recently entitled Maths Curriculum Makeover. It was a 12 minute presentation by Dan Meyer, A US high school maths teacher. In the video Meyer promotes the need for what he calls "patient problem solving" in developing reasoning skills in students. He demonstrates how thoughtful instructional design supporting inquiry-based learning, and the use of multimedia can produce more engaged students who are better prepared for solving real-world problems. He lamented the usual tendency for teachers to "give problems to students", rather than involve students in the formulation of problems. He also issued a sobering reminder that "we are going to retire into a world that our students will run," but that's another issue!
The video is entertaining as well as instructive and thought-provoking. Take a look and leave a comment on whether it stimulates any thoughts around teaching in your discipline.
The video is entertaining as well as instructive and thought-provoking. Take a look and leave a comment on whether it stimulates any thoughts around teaching in your discipline.
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This is excellent Pat. I will have to take some time to think about how I can try to do some of this. I really do see the initiative problem in my classes...I even had students follow me to class from my office this semester because they did not know where it was and could not be bothered to look. I whish I had seen this about 6 weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteI think that the approach is a good one and benefits the students in many ways. I, however, think that it should be one of the tools in our toolbox. The "textbook" type give-the-problem specifics also has its place and should not be discarded. I believe an integrated approach should be adopted.
ReplyDeleteI like the video and it believe it highlights some of the major reasons why our maths students are not as strong as before. Most of the students today lack maths reasoning and patience problem solving skills (one must be patience in order to derive the correct solution). As a matter a fact students today lack patience. And I’m asking myself why? Could it be the semester system? We are asking students to come to a “new” course, be exposed to a ‘new’ set of material and in 13 weeks be able to “master” this material in order to get and good grade or an “A” grade; knowing fully well that it takes patience in order to master anything (unless you very talented or gifted). So I see a conflict – we wish to have patient students in an impatient system.
ReplyDeleteMost of what the video highlighted in terms of what needs to be done (letting students be part of the problem formulation, encourage student intuition, etc,..) should be done at both primary and secondary level – before students enter college. Once students are well grounded, then it makes it easier to put on 13 week programs.
I definitely agree that we should us the multimedia to bring our courses ‘alive’ in the classroom. Let students see that we are solving real world problems. We as lecturers need to be more creative and yes, in some cases, move away from the heavy reliance on the course book and design our instructional material so the students see the connections. This video has brought to my attention that there is enough rich media available to help us (teachers) move away from the abstract approach to teaching.
I like the video and I believe it highlights some of the major reasons why our maths students are not as strong as before. Most of the students today lack maths reasoning and patient problem solving skills (one must be patient in order to derive the correct solution). As a matter a fact, students today lack patience. And I’m asking myself why? Could it be the semester system? We are asking students to come to a “new” course, be exposed to a ‘new’ set of material and in 13 weeks, be able to “master” this material in order to get and good grade or an “A” grade; knowing fully well that it takes patience in order to master anything (unless you very talented or gifted). So I see a conflict – we wish to have patient students in an impatient system.
ReplyDeleteMost of what the video highlighted in terms of what needs to be done in a classroom environment (letting students be part of the problem formulation, encourage student intuition, etc,..) should be done at both primary and secondary level – before students enter college. Once students are well grounded, the same process can be continued at the college level. It is then much easier to put on 13 week programs.
I definitely agree that we should us the multimedia to bring our courses ‘alive’ in the classroom. Let students see that we are solving real world problems. We as lecturers need to be more creative and yes, in some cases, move away from the heavy reliance on the course book, and design our instructional material so the students see the connections. This video has brought to my attention that there is enough rich media available to help us (teachers) move away from the abstract approach to teaching.
Thanks for sharing, anon Nov 26. Thoughtful post. i particularly like your comment " – we wish to have patient students in an impatient system." I am thinking, not only an impatient system but an impatient era all together. How can subjects that require "patient problem solving" in the development of mastery be effectively taught in today's fast-paced world with students who think everything is too slow... remember the Carlson article?
DeleteThis was very interesting, it brought home to me problems withe students retention. Sometimes they examine a patient and less than 5 minutes later they cannot remember what they have found. Is it a problem with not focusing or lack of organization of thought. I believe in our generation we learnt early to think in a logical organized way, maybe the digital and technological era has really caused development of different brain pathways and somehow organizational skills are not priority. I find again and again I have to remind the students to think in a more organized and logical manner and it seems they have to retrain their brain in how to process information. With the tools available we can use them effectively to help our students gain patience in an impatient world.
DeleteGreat video! I certainly like the idea of patient problem solving and the clearly more direct implications that it has in the day-to-day world by triggering thought processes rather than formula application. It makes one wonder about where and when things started to change because this approach must closely resemble how people handled scientific questions in the first place – irrespective of how patient they were -, before textbooks and consolidated math principles and models were readily available to everybody. Perhaps the need to educate the increasingly larger masses of people under tight budgets and short time periods along with the spread of books over the past few hundred years simply meant less emphasis in the time consuming (but rewarding) process of problem solving and more emphasis on the now readily available solutions that have been derived collectively through history. Because we have lost track of why we were seeking the solution in the first place, I can see why students find it difficult to relate to these math problems. On the other hand, there is an obvious trade off. Because the patient problem solving approach likely involves more trial and error, it seems to me that you cannot address all the solutions that a student would be expected to master as part of normal curricula in the same timeframe. You teach them how to think about a set of specific problems, but in doing so you might have to sacrifice alternative candidate problems they should also have thought about to fulfill the requirements to get a diploma.
ReplyDeleteGreat video! I certainly like the idea of patient problem solving and the clearly more direct implications that it has in the day-to-day world by triggering thought processes rather than formula application. It makes one wonder about where and when things started to change because this approach must closely resemble how people handled scientific questions in the first place – irrespective of how patient they were -, before textbooks and consolidated math principles and models were readily available to everybody. Perhaps the need to educate the increasingly larger masses of people under tight budgets and short time periods along with the spread of books over the past few hundred years simply meant less emphasis in the time consuming (but rewarding) process of problem solving and more emphasis on the now readily available solutions that have been derived collectively through history. Because we have lost track of why we were seeking the solution in the first place, I can see why students find it difficult to relate to these math problems. On the other hand, there is an obvious trade off. Because the patient problem solving approach likely involves more trial and error, it seems to me that you cannot address all the solutions that a student would be expected to master as part of normal curricula in the same timeframe. You teach them how to think about a set of specific problems, but in doing so you might have to sacrifice alternative candidate problems they should also have thought about to fulfill the requirements to get a diploma.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your very insightful and thought-provoking response Henri! You make several excellent points, including the issue of the trade off between allowing time for "patient problem solving" and covering the curriculum. It is a difficult call, but part of the problem is that education today spends a great deal of time and energy on what students should "know" and not nearly enough on what they should be able to "do". Everyone is crying out for graduates to be problem-solvers, creative thinkers etc... but "covering the content" gets in the way of really developing these skills.
ReplyDelete