Less is More

Getting the wrong answer and explaining what went wrong, especially as a group, is a great exercise not only in mathematics, but in 21st Century Skills.  Students have to get used to collaboration and team challenges, but once they do, they thrive on figuring it out together.  I had never heard of the butterfly method for adding fractions.  I completely agree with him that it does little to help a student understand what's happening when you add two fractions with different denominators.  With fractions, I feel that manipulatives are best.  You can lay one fraction piece on top of another and really see how much larger, smaller or the equivalency.  Students need to show deep understanding of math concepts before they are allowed to go on to higher classes, or else - what's the point?  It seems it would be to confuse the student and make them hate math because they have no idea what's going on!  Less is more - focus on fewer concepts and go deeper.  Students will make bridges between different concepts if their understanding is solid.

 I found all the articles on common core standards to be interesting too.  Interesting how the math standards were written by exactly three men.  A comment was made in one of the articles stating that the standards aren't curriculum and we should therefore not expect lesson plans from the same writers.  True, but the rolling out of the standards with regards to the materials that are available to teachers and the training is disproportionate to the speed at which they want the standards to be implemented.

We NEED to give teachers a chance to keep their jobs and if possible, their grade levels so that we can work with the new standards and develop methods and materials.  These things take time.  Budget cuts, bureaucracy, and a lack of respect for the educator are to blame for the standards not taking off as quickly as they could have.  Priorities need to be reexamined by school districts and morale is low.