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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Questions about high school math education
        
(Message started by: BenVitale on Aug 23^rd, 2010, 11:18am)

Title: Questions about high school math education
Post by BenVitale on Aug 23^rd, 2010, 11:18am

In the article International Test Scores (http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm)

Students from USA and Canada are far behind in math and science.

The article says our poor results are tied to weak curriculum, but since I haven't seen math syllabi from countries that are outperforming US and Canadian students, I don't know what they are doing and how they're doing math, and why are their math syllabi superior to ours?

Could anyone explain that?

And, on another topic, How did old math textbooks, from early 20th century and 19th century look like?
Were the math syllabi from the times, say, of Riemann, Klein, Poincare, Godel, Louis De Branges, etc. superior to the current high school math syllabus?

Title: Re: Questions about high school math education
Post by Noke Lieu on Aug 23^rd, 2010, 7:17pm

I'd never really appreciated the differences between US and AUS highschool until I read this:

http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=157207360119454;res=IELHSS

wow.
So, failure is compounded by humiliation.

Then again, in Japan, they have a different style of lesson. Admittedly, they're more common in Primary/Elementary school, than Hihgschool, but their effect is long lasting. They are along the lines of open nvestigation- for example a whole lesson will be spent on "What is 8+6?". The students then have half an hour to work out the answer.
about 2 minutes or so in, the teacher provides the answer. The rest of the time is spent justifying the answer. Students then present their justification. If it's a 'new' method, then it gets called "[Hitome]'s Method".

These lessons are designed to shift understanding from instructional to relational, and to make the students feel they are contributing to the development of the class, and that their ideas are valuable.

http://www.emis.de/proceedings/PME29/PME29RRPapers/PME29Vol2Beswick.pdf
(is abotu the difference between instructional/relational understanding).

The big cop out answer is that there's more respect given to maths and the mathematicians in these countries. We typically consider them to be nations of engineers and scientists, rather than nations of movie stars, farmers and truck drivers. Or surfers and crocodile wrestlers.

Title: Re: Questions about high school math education
Post by ThudanBlunder on Aug 23^rd, 2010, 7:26pm

on 08/23/10 at 19:17:42, Noke Lieu wrote:

These lessons are designed to shift understanding from instructional to relational, and to make the students feel they are contributing to the development of the class, and that their ideas are valuable.

In UK this is called 'guided discovery'.