5 ms·

How To Make Any 3rd Grader Love Math

29 points by chuckie 16y ago

cthimmer 16y ago
I love the idea of personalized education. My daughters, who LOVE Harry Potter, would kill to have that app too! :)
cabacon 16y ago
Ugh! This sounds exactly like pseudo-context as described by Dan Meyer (http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=8002 http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=8002). There are so many awesome things to inspire someone in math, and slapping a popular movie character on rote drills seems like a misguided approach to motivating the challenge. I mean, on the one hand, good for you if you can find some trappings to make doing drills more fun. But while you're getting them to exercise skills, you're really missing out on the deep and fulfilling motivations that exist for math!
- patrickyeon 16y ago
  That's what I thought of immediately as well, but I'm not sure it's even pseudo-context. Pseudo-context would be "if Hermione cast 5 spells yesterday, and two today, how many in total did she cast?" This is just math drills (another 'technique' that has its supporters and opponents) with a coat of shiny paint, hoping that the paint is pretty enough that a kid will pay attention to it in spite of the math.
sparky 16y ago
In the video, is the guy saying "brilliant!" a sample from a Guinness commercial? Well played.
shrikant 16y ago
From http://mobilelearningblog.com/2010/10/14/how-to-make-any-3rd-grader-love-math/#copyright http://mobilelearningblog.com/2010/10/14/how-to-make-any-3rd...: The Hermione Granger math app that was created was purely for individual use. This app will not be distributed, sold, shared or otherwise provided publicly. We respect the rights of copyright holders. That just makes me sad.
- dazzawazza 16y ago
  Having worked, tangentially, on a Harry Potter Video game I can tell you that if the Harry Potter machine thought it could make money from such a title it would be in every app store on the planet.
asolove 16y ago
I think this approach is self-defeating. You could use it to teach your daughter (or son) to take math quizzes well, but you will never use it to inspire them to appreciate the beauty of math. In my experience, most of these "make-learning-fun" tools are really about making learning independent enough that parents don't have to participate. If you want any third grader to love math, have her mom and dad cajole and joke and help and love her while she is learning it. I learned my multiplication tables because my father would teach me bits of algebra, but only after I could get the flash cards right. He wasn't distracting me, he was rooting for me, showing me the underlying beauty of math, while also demanding I get the basic memorization right.
- tesseract 16y ago
  > you will never use it to inspire them to appreciate the beauty of math. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
- dtran 16y ago
  I don't think he spent time making a custom iPad app for his daughter so he could make learning independent enough to not participate. He was merely trying to apply one of his strengths (programming), his background (a startup designing educational games), and background knowledge (knowing his daughter loved Harry Potter) to try to create a better learning experience for his daughter, which is something I think every good educator, whether it's a teacher, parent, or peer, should do. You have to teach people to your strengths and their strengths - if he was an author and chose to teach math to his daughter in the context of elaborate stories and fairy tales, would you call that self-defeating as well? This reminded me of Randy Pausch's last lecture (if you haven't had a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo). Teaching kids is all about headfakes* - you are't encouraging them to play soccer so they can go and play in the World Cup, but rather so they have a fun context to learn about things like hard work, practice, and teamwork. Analogously, I think this personalized Harry Potter app just teaches his daughter that learning doesn't always have to feel like work, not specifically that she should spend all day trying to get praises from Hermoine and British men answering math problems. * Disclaimer: I don't have kids and know little to nothing about raising or educating kids.
die_sekte 16y ago
The problem isn't any individual 3rd grader, the problem is the nearly society-wide acceptance of innumeracy, sometimes even approval of innumeracy. I think this will be one of the factors limiting (economic) growth in the future.
cwbrandsma 16y ago
So I actually did spend some time to create IPad apps for my kids to help them learn math (Beginning Math and Times Table Helper -- for sale on the app store now :). Couple of things I don't like here: 1. First thing I see is time math quizzes. Timed math tests are flat out evil. I'm thinking of the 60 problems in 60 seconds variety I had as a 3rd graders (and failed). Don't do this to your kids. Let them go at their own pace. 2. That is a lot of distractions. If you have ever dealt with dyslexic kids (prone to mentally wander off -- and I am dyslexic as well), this is not helpful. Not all electronic learning software needs to be game oriented.
stelfer 16y ago
In general I don't like this approach to learning. I feel like it's counter to the rule that you shouldn't reward kids for things they should be expected to do. That being said, he says clearly that this is about learning math facts. The are the one rote part left in the early math curriculum. It's going to be painful for most kids. I know this from very recent experience. Anything you can do to help I think is advantageous. He should not have titled his post as he did. It should have been titled "How to get any 3rd grader to learn their math facts more efficiently". I think that's what he meant to say anyway.
- mcyger 16y ago
  My wife and I agree that we should not reward our children for things we consider a requirement of being a part of our family: education, chores, charity, manners, etc. That being said, I think there's no reason why kids can't have more fun while they're learning. And if it helps them study/practice longer, what's the harm? I agree that your title is more exacting. :)
noonespecial 16y ago
Harry Potter aside, any child whose parents are this involved will be a smashing success.
kellishaver 16y ago
Leap Frog is already one step ahead of him with that one: http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming/didj/ http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming/didj/ You can plug it in to the computer and personalize the learning content, i.e. enter your kid's spelling words for that week, or a specific set of math problems, etc. Doing good in the games unlocks points they can redeem to earn custom game backgrounds, characters, and so on. There are a handful of games for the system, Spongebob, LEGO, Star Wars, maybe even a Harry Potter. It's kind of a neat system (but a bit buggy). I don't think it works particularly well for teaching, but for doing drills on the stuff that just has to be memorized, like basic math facts and spelling, I think it serves its purpose. What made my 3rd grader love math (it's her favorite subject) was understanding the hows and whys behind it and seeing some practical application of it. The more complicated it is, the more she likes it, and so she memorized the basic facts in order to get to the good bits. I'm not entirely convinced, though, that this is typical 8yr old behavior.
gwilliams 16y ago
This would be a bit more fun with word problems involving the time turner, potions, etc. "Fluffy has three heads, and each head can eat two bowls in a sitting...how many bowls should Hermione fill to satisfy him?"
- mcyger 16y ago
  That's a great idea! I may try to incorporate some word problems into the app to tie together reading comprehension with basic math skills.

29 points by chuckie 16y ago

I love the idea of personalized education. My daughters, who LOVE Harry Potter, would kill to have that app too! :)

Ugh! This sounds exactly like pseudo-context as described by Dan Meyer (http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=8002 http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=8002). There are so many awesome things to inspire someone in math, and slapping a popular movie character on rote drills seems like a misguided approach to motivating the challenge. I mean, on the one hand, good for you if you can find some trappings to make doing drills more fun. But while you're getting them to exercise skills, you're really missing out on the deep and fulfilling motivations that exist for math!

patrickyeon 16y ago
That's what I thought of immediately as well, but I'm not sure it's even pseudo-context. Pseudo-context would be "if Hermione cast 5 spells yesterday, and two today, how many in total did she cast?" This is just math drills (another 'technique' that has its supporters and opponents) with a coat of shiny paint, hoping that the paint is pretty enough that a kid will pay attention to it in spite of the math.

sparky 16y ago

In the video, is the guy saying "brilliant!" a sample from a Guinness commercial? Well played.

shrikant 16y ago

From http://mobilelearningblog.com/2010/10/14/how-to-make-any-3rd-grader-love-math/#copyright http://mobilelearningblog.com/2010/10/14/how-to-make-any-3rd...: The Hermione Granger math app that was created was purely for individual use. This app will not be distributed, sold, shared or otherwise provided publicly. We respect the rights of copyright holders. That just makes me sad.

dazzawazza 16y ago
Having worked, tangentially, on a Harry Potter Video game I can tell you that if the Harry Potter machine thought it could make money from such a title it would be in every app store on the planet.

asolove 16y ago

I think this approach is self-defeating. You could use it to teach your daughter (or son) to take math quizzes well, but you will never use it to inspire them to appreciate the beauty of math. In my experience, most of these "make-learning-fun" tools are really about making learning independent enough that parents don't have to participate. If you want any third grader to love math, have her mom and dad cajole and joke and help and love her while she is learning it. I learned my multiplication tables because my father would teach me bits of algebra, but only after I could get the flash cards right. He wasn't distracting me, he was rooting for me, showing me the underlying beauty of math, while also demanding I get the basic memorization right.

tesseract 16y ago
> you will never use it to inspire them to appreciate the beauty of math. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
dtran 16y ago
I don't think he spent time making a custom iPad app for his daughter so he could make learning independent enough to not participate. He was merely trying to apply one of his strengths (programming), his background (a startup designing educational games), and background knowledge (knowing his daughter loved Harry Potter) to try to create a better learning experience for his daughter, which is something I think every good educator, whether it's a teacher, parent, or peer, should do. You have to teach people to your strengths and their strengths - if he was an author and chose to teach math to his daughter in the context of elaborate stories and fairy tales, would you call that self-defeating as well? This reminded me of Randy Pausch's last lecture (if you haven't had a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo). Teaching kids is all about headfakes* - you are't encouraging them to play soccer so they can go and play in the World Cup, but rather so they have a fun context to learn about things like hard work, practice, and teamwork. Analogously, I think this personalized Harry Potter app just teaches his daughter that learning doesn't always have to feel like work, not specifically that she should spend all day trying to get praises from Hermoine and British men answering math problems. * Disclaimer: I don't have kids and know little to nothing about raising or educating kids.

die_sekte 16y ago

The problem isn't any individual 3rd grader, the problem is the nearly society-wide acceptance of innumeracy, sometimes even approval of innumeracy. I think this will be one of the factors limiting (economic) growth in the future.

cwbrandsma 16y ago

So I actually did spend some time to create IPad apps for my kids to help them learn math (Beginning Math and Times Table Helper -- for sale on the app store now :). Couple of things I don't like here: 1. First thing I see is time math quizzes. Timed math tests are flat out evil. I'm thinking of the 60 problems in 60 seconds variety I had as a 3rd graders (and failed). Don't do this to your kids. Let them go at their own pace. 2. That is a lot of distractions. If you have ever dealt with dyslexic kids (prone to mentally wander off -- and I am dyslexic as well), this is not helpful. Not all electronic learning software needs to be game oriented.

stelfer 16y ago

In general I don't like this approach to learning. I feel like it's counter to the rule that you shouldn't reward kids for things they should be expected to do. That being said, he says clearly that this is about learning math facts. The are the one rote part left in the early math curriculum. It's going to be painful for most kids. I know this from very recent experience. Anything you can do to help I think is advantageous. He should not have titled his post as he did. It should have been titled "How to get any 3rd grader to learn their math facts more efficiently". I think that's what he meant to say anyway.

mcyger 16y ago
My wife and I agree that we should not reward our children for things we consider a requirement of being a part of our family: education, chores, charity, manners, etc. That being said, I think there's no reason why kids can't have more fun while they're learning. And if it helps them study/practice longer, what's the harm? I agree that your title is more exacting. :)

noonespecial 16y ago

Harry Potter aside, any child whose parents are this involved will be a smashing success.

kellishaver 16y ago

Leap Frog is already one step ahead of him with that one: http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming/didj/ http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming/didj/ You can plug it in to the computer and personalize the learning content, i.e. enter your kid's spelling words for that week, or a specific set of math problems, etc. Doing good in the games unlocks points they can redeem to earn custom game backgrounds, characters, and so on. There are a handful of games for the system, Spongebob, LEGO, Star Wars, maybe even a Harry Potter. It's kind of a neat system (but a bit buggy). I don't think it works particularly well for teaching, but for doing drills on the stuff that just has to be memorized, like basic math facts and spelling, I think it serves its purpose. What made my 3rd grader love math (it's her favorite subject) was understanding the hows and whys behind it and seeing some practical application of it. The more complicated it is, the more she likes it, and so she memorized the basic facts in order to get to the good bits. I'm not entirely convinced, though, that this is typical 8yr old behavior.

gwilliams 16y ago

This would be a bit more fun with word problems involving the time turner, potions, etc. "Fluffy has three heads, and each head can eat two bowls in a sitting...how many bowls should Hermione fill to satisfy him?"

mcyger 16y ago
That's a great idea! I may try to incorporate some word problems into the app to tie together reading comprehension with basic math skills.