Study: Teachers not being taught math properly

[flashl]

WASHINGTON - For kids to do better in math, their teachers might have to go back to school. Elementary-school teachers are poorly prepared by education schools to teach math, finds a study being released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Math relies heavily on cumulative knowledge, making the early years critical.

The study by the nonpartisan research and advocacy group comes a few months after a federal panel reported that U.S. students have widespread difficulty with fractions, a problem that arises in elementary school and prevents kids from mastering more complicated topics like algebra later on.

The report looked at 77 elementary education programs around the country, or roughly 5 percent of the institutions that offer undergraduate elementary teacher certification.

It found the programs, within colleges and universities, spend too little time on elementary math topics.

Author Julie Greenberg said education students should be taking courses that give them a deeper understanding of arithmetic and multiplication. She said the courses should explain how math concepts build upon each other and why certain ideas need to be emphasized in the classroom.

Chicago Tribune

[hobbit709]

1. All the current policies want them to teach

is how to take the standardized tests. Most of the kids have no concept of basic math and take as the literal truth whatever the screen on the calculator shows when the = key is pressed.

[fight4my3sons]

2. I have to admit I have a lot of problems in Math.

I did start having problems in 4th grade. In college one of my professors noticed that I switched numbers around as I wrote them and I writed 9s instead of 2s and 2s instead of 9s on a consistent basis. I have had math anxiety since elementary school fractions.

Right now I am taking the PRAXIS tests to become certified in Maine (I am certified in NY), but moved here three years ago and they have different certification requirements here. I failed the math section by two points.

Here in Maine they use Reform Math and not the Traditional Math programs. A lot of the teachers had to be retrained. Parents complain a lot that they can't help their kids with the homework. When I was working on my master's my professor was pro-reform math so that is what he taught us.

[woodsprite]

3. My daughter is in an AP math course doing

pre-calculus in 9th grade. Her teacher (the same one she'll have next year) consistently could not work the problems in the homework to come out to the answers in the teacher's guide or the back of the student's textbook. When the kids asked questions, she referred them to the text in the book and said she was not going to give the kids the answers.

We've hired a college student to tutor our daughter and go back over previous chapters and homeworks she had questions on because these kids (40 of them) need to pass a 3-day exam designed by Cambridge Univ. in November inorder to stay in the program. My daughter is on honor roll with all her other AP classes, it's this one and Spanish III that seem to be problems. I swear the Spanish teacher is related to Prof. Trelawny from Harry Potter.

[Gman]

4. Kids who worked puzzles as small children were already doing math-like concepts

Math is not taught correctly. Then, when you don't understand something, you get anxious and want to stay away from it.

If you want your kids to do well in Math, give them lots and lots of puzzles to do. Math is solving a puzzle. You use known information to find unknown information.

And, you don't study Math like you do Geography or History. You must practice Math like anything else that you practice at and get good at it. I think one of the biggest problems (among many) with how Math is taught is that you must study Math. You must practice Math which is repetive and boring. Math requires a lot of effort which too many kids are unwilling to do and which too many parents are too willing to let them off the hook for.

And, there is still absolutely NO emphasis on every day application of what kids are learning in Math. One of the biggest thing I've heard from my kids is that "I'll never use this stuff again. Why do I have to learn it?" That's where I'll sit down and find a way to relate what they're learning to the real world. If I can't find an everyday example, I can at least show a business or science example so that they can relate and don't feel like they're somewhere off in oblivion working stupid problems that don't have any relevance to the world.

JMHO

[Catshrink]

5. Right on.

I teach chemistry and often use algebra I skills. The kids don't see math as a tool -- they passed the class and flushed the knowledge never thinking they'd need it again. They might be able to spout off a formula but have no clue what it means and how to apply it. I feel that I need to be a math teacher along with the chemistry, even though I use no concept higher than first semester algebra I and that class is a prerequisite.

[dsc]

6. actually you likely use alg 2 skills

It has been some time since I have taken Chemistry but I recall that one would need to solve quadratics better than a typical alg 1 student would be able to.

[Catshrink]

7. Quadratics?

Not in regular chem. I just did a collaboration with the math department to write a math assessment for entering chem students. 95% of the questions are from first semester algebra I. The other 5% is stuff they should have learned in middle school.

[dsc]

8. we require alg 2 here

again, I took chem when the earth cooled, so I have no real memory. I have no idea what skill they are requiring from alg 2, or maybe they just are needing the review of alg 1 that is also in alg 2.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Math requires visual skills

More than most people realize. So you make an excellent suggestion. It is indeed important to train young brains to see patterns and puzzles are an effective strategy.