A great article titled Waiting for Supermath came through my inbox today. It includes commentary on a video (below) of a third grader showing how she solves a four-digit addition problem using what she learns at school, or the Investigations curriculum, versus what her mother (a math intervention specialist) teaches at home, the traditional “stacking” […]
President Obama would like to know how South Korea has risen up to have one of the fastest-growing economies and best-educated workers in just over a generation. Rather than look to a magic fix, The Lost Seoul addresses some cultural differences between South Korea and the US in this blog post. One important difference he […]
Today in my Math Mavens program, we opened the book You Can Count on Monsters by Richard Evan Schwartz for the first time. This is a book I bought because I heard glowing reviews of it on NPR. The concept of the book is teaching prime and composite numbers through colorful, geometrical monsters. It is […]
Among my students are three brothers in middle school whom I tutor in writing. They are all honors students whose parents hired me as a tutor for enrichment. One activity I’m doing with them is to write a letter to the president. It’s simple enough to do: the White House website has an easy-to-use contact […]
Scarsdale, NY is a model district in terms of scores and success. They attribute this success to five building blocks in their curriculum: Singapore Math, inquiry approaches to science and social studies, fluency in information technology, and creative arts. Yet they are having to cut teachers and programs due to budget constraints. They contrast this […]
We hear plenty of talk about teaching and reinforcing basic skills in math. Yes, these are very important, but computation skills aren’t what lead to breakthroughs and new discoveries; new ways of thinking do, right? This young woman exemplifies real creativity in mathematical thinking. I find this so inspiring. Investigating mathematical principles through art: what […]
A new app for iPhone/iPod, called BugMath, came out recently. It claims to teach young children math skills based on Singapore Math methods. To experience it, I played my way through the various games, which are fun and have cute graphics. I saw how they can reinforce counting and memory skills. However, I don’t see […]