Why Math?

In my previous post, I called for us to take advantage of technology to teach math better. With the support of computers we can more effectively apply the principles of educational technology, namely use of objectives, self-paced individualization, and positive reinforcement and feedback.

I have encountered two major hurdles in my attempts to get this message out. The first of these is that there seem to be relatively few educators who are well-steeped in the understanding and application of the principles involved. Among them there is not a great deal of familiarity with the writings and findings of ed tech pioneers such as Glaser, Skinner, Mager, and Gagne. The conventional thinking seems still to be that math improvement will be found in the discovery of new things for teachers to teach using traditional class-oriented methodologies.

Ed tech is founded on the realization that learning depends less on what teachers say and more on what students do. And students do most when working at their own pace.

The other hurdle is that the incentives given students for expending energy on math seem to be mostly extrinsic. The most common reason being that the jobs of the twenty-first century depend on employees' having math skills. We have a word for physical or mental energy spent mainly on extrinsic goals. The word is "work."

The intrinsic fun and fascination that exists in math escapes many math students. Many math teachers, too. If we're going to make serious strides in improving math education, we must shine some new bright light in this area.

A new HBO movie about an autistic achiever named Temple Grandin briefly mentions how math reduces the chaos in life. Those of us who took math as an elective see that aspect of it and much more. The movie is excellent and has to do with the "gives and takes" in life and how people must perceive them in order to make life meaningful. The movie is very much about balancing things on either side of the equal sign.

(I'm stepping out on a limb, somewhat, when I suggest that the appreciation of "balance" that can come from math studies can also bear on such things as politics, financial and business management, health care, foreign relations, and even religious extremism. Maybe these ideas will come up in future posts.)

In any case, if we're going to change math education it will help if we can get math's intrinsic rewards into the foreground of our focus. Not just for the students - if we make them as successful as we can they'll be getting all the fun and satisfaction they need - but our appreciations as teachers will give us more incentive to really get started improving things and the vision and heart to build programs that work.

CapJack

Math Education

Let's see where this goes.
The story I'm sticking to is that math can be a lot easier and a whole lot more fun to learn. We just need to take fuller advantage of available technology to teach math.
The main advantage technology provides is the individualization of learning by using computers to manage the process, a task that is simply beyond the ability of a human teacher faced with 30 or so students with differing skills and interests.

Here's my thinking. Every successful math student I've ever known agrees that the key to good math grades is keeping up with the homework. Of course, for most students that's easier said than done. But how hard would it be if the homework was tailored to the student's individual pace of learning and addressed only those topics the student was ready to undertake?
That's something that can be done with instructional computer software.

Wait! There's more. After we've used a computer to break math homework down into bite-size chunks that match the student's appetite at the time, we can season it with things like positive reinforcement, scorekeeping, immediate feedback, and other game-like ingredients and turn the whole activity into something that might even be called fun.

What would this approach mean to teachers? They would act more like coaches, mentors, and cheerleaders. No papers to grade. No tests to prepare and give. But they would need to be expert enough with concepts to help students over the occasional rough patch.

There are some other questions. Who's going to develop the software? What problems might arise from having somewhat wide variations in student math skills and ages even though we could be sure that all students would eventually achieve some minimal standards?