Activity Two:  Discussing the Discussion

I was really hoping for something spicy to be said on the discussion board!  Seems we are all pretty amiable folks in education; so wanting to do the right thing for our students that we will try anything!  And the result of this is a lovely balance between the old and the new – which feels right.  

Remember the push for whole language reading?  And how we swung back to phonics after we recognized that students really do need to foundational patterns on which to build more sophisticated thinking and skills?  Compellingly, these trends in math seem to go the same way. 

What is telling is that the debate, though critical, seems to be contained primarily to those in education.  I remember the whole language debate on the 6:00 news, with everyone and their third cousin weighing in.  The public seems suspiciously quiet though this continuing struggle in mathematics education.  I suspect that this relates back to the idea discussed at length on our discussion board about attitude toward mathematics.    Much of the public feels uncomfortable with maths, and throw their hands up in frustration at the idea of discussing something so utterly un-understandable.

Of all the potentially controversial discussion points presented on our board, the question that has stuck with me is that of accelerating the curriculum.  How does this work for students?  And isn’t a fluid approach to skill learning embedded in problem-based learning?  And what does that mean for the baseline understanding of mathematics needed by classroom teachers?  As competency needs increase, how does that affect teacher training and continuing education?