About two weeks ago, a post titled “Singapore Math Is ‘Our Dirty Little Secret’” appeared on the Core Knowledge blog. It criticized the New York Times article about Singapore Math that appeared on October 1. Apparently, the author believes that the poor state of math education in the US is due to what he calls […]
My first trip to NCTM is over, and I’m glad I went. Although the setup had a few glitches, like an LCD projector that didn’t want to project from my laptop, my presentation on problem solving using model drawing went well, with close to 180 participants. Many of them came back to the booth, interested […]
After a long day of arriving and helping to set up the SDE booth, I had a little time to look around the NCTM bookstore. (NCTM, in case you don’t know, is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the host of this conference.) There were some interesting books, but the one I just […]
I’m on my way to participate in the NCTM Regional conference in Baltimore, Maryland. My presentation is first thing tomorrow morning, and it will be on the topic of Singapore Math model drawing. The session is 75 minutes long, enough for a taste of several types of model drawing. Hopefully the participants will come away […]
Bill Jackson, the Scarsdale Singapore Math coach who is making waves nationwide, wrote an interesting series for The Daily Riff. The first article lays out how he got interested in Singapore Math. Here is a quote from his experience working with Japanese math teachers: When I began working with the Japanese teachers, I soon realized […]
A new reality show called Teach premiered on A&E on October 1. It follows Tony Danza as he enters the teaching profession as a high school literature teacher, with no prior teacher training. I was fully prepared to dislike this program, as the preview indicated it would be another feel-good show about a former actor […]
Following on from last Friday’s New York Times article, the NY Times blogs ran a brief follow-up article titled, “A Slower Approach to Math,” with the opportunity to add your own comments to it. There were some pretty interesting thoughts there, which inspired me to add the following comment: As a teacher experienced in teaching […]
Are you looking for ideas about how to engage students in math, or show them how it applies to the real world? Here is a fun one for sports lovers. John Roach at msnbc.com recently published an article called “The Math and Science of Baseball.” It outlines various ways in which math and science have […]
Good news! The virtual classroom for our awesome YWP program is up and running. As soon as participants are fully signed up, they will receive login information. I have received a number of inquiries about the location of the program. The answer is: it’s up to us! Some people are north, some are south, some […]
Last Friday, this New York times article about Singapore Math appeared. The premise of the beginning of the article is that by studying one number at a time slowly, students learn more thoroughly and therefore build a better mathematical foundation. This is true, even if it is an oversimplification of the curriculum. Here is a […]