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>I see this largely as a failure of education. You see this issue in many areas and much earlier on like teaching mathematics. In schools there tends to be one

by parfe 15y ago

>I see this largely as a failure of education. You see this issue in many areas and much earlier on like teaching mathematics. In schools there tends to be one method used and that method doesn't suit everybody. Good thing professional educators are almost as observant as you in regard to teaching. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=differentiated+instruction http://lmgtfy.com/?q=differentiated+instruction I really love how HN conceit lets people post about entire industries as if those people just have no clue what they are doing. And not only do people here hold those pompous and generally ignorant positions, but other people support them!

dpritchett 15y ago
I read cletus's post to suggest that primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. A lot of it is budgets and politics. No need to infer that cletus believes he is a more thoughtful educator than people who spend their careers on it.
- irahul 15y ago
  > This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. Demonstrably true here in India as well. True that I can't speak for all of India, or you can't speak for all of US; but I believe I have enough data points for the extrapolation to be valid. I think that's enough to infer we have a problem, and it's largely ignored. > cletus believes he is a more thoughtful educator than people who spend their careers on it. I don't think it matters what cletus thinks. Conceited or not, I see his observations mostly hold in the real world.
- gioele 15y ago
  > primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. I would say that it is demonstrably not true in many EU countries. Maybe "non personalisation" is the tendency of lazy teachers, but I remember pretty well how my math teachers repeated the same subject thrice: the first time describing its core in an abstract way, the second time with concrete examples (apples and pears) and the third time in very little incremental steps. The first explanation was for naturally able math learner, the second for those how needed practical examples and the third for less able pupils. Some of us complained about the fact that it was a boring way to teach (and you know how horrible bored kids can be in the class) but I'd say it was worth it to have all my classmates learning more or less at the same pace with nobody left behind. Actually, I complain more about the fact that we had to change math teachers so many times because of educational reforms and budget cuts/reorganizations.
  - hobin 15y ago
    Which country do you live in? I don't know about the quality of schools in general here (the Netherlands), but I've met too many people who say they "can't do math" to think very highly of our elementary educational system. Granted, though, this may have more to do with the fact that it's generally acceptable to 'just not able to do math'. (This is not to say that I think everyone can do math equally well, but I've seen some otherwise intelligent people making such comments that made me want to rip my eyes out.)
    - flaviusb 15y ago
      I think of it like Sturgeon's Law applied to humans. Most humans just are not very good at most stuff. Look at the percentage of programmers that are basically not any good at programming all and yet are able to continue being called programmers; if we apply standards of expectation uniformly, then you would expect to see even people in technical fields be able to be useless at math and have everyone basically just shrug and accept it.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  I read cletus's post to suggest that primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. That's how I read it too. And that is a finding of international studies of primary mathematics education. The newly industrialized countries of east Asia do much better in primary mathematics education, using textbooks (and teacher professional development to ensure that the textbooks are well applied in the classroom) such that key concepts are presented from multiple points of view, to reach as many learners as possible. The TIMSS test results http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf suggest this is working out well for those countries. A book-length description of how mathematics primary education differs between much of the United States and much of China http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0415873843 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... is an eye-opening read.
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Nice idea, but to what extent has it been implemented? Hard to find info on that. And in my own experience, differentiated instruction within the context of traditional mixed-ability, set-pace classroom instruction is still relatively weak. Further, why be an ass and post a lmgtfy link when the op is clearly not aware of the term to google. You see the contradiction there I'm sure. Next time just post a link to the search results.
- parfe 15y ago
  First, it's not my job to educate you. Go look it up yourself if you feel like commenting on it. The fact the original poster fabricated his post out of naked overconfident ignorance is more than enough to warrant a snide reply. His post was not a critique on current educational theory or instruction but based on his experiences as a grade schooler that might be decades out of date, and seen through the eyes of a child. Chances are your school implemented a similar style of teaching, except your teacher didn't come into a room of 3rd, 5th or 10th graders and say : "Ok students, I spent 2 weeks this summer on my "vacation" training 8 hours a day and now I will be differentiating my instruction! I sure hope you don't all grow up to be overconfident ignorant asses who can't see beyond the direct and personalized instruction I give each one of you. I hope you realize that I might be explaining these concepts to different students in a way that suits them! Also, I hope you don't make fun of the kids who are in the low classes or need the help of an in class aide. Now here are three ways to look at multiplication."
  - ender7 15y ago
    Since you've been registered here almost two years, I would hope you'd be aware that snide comments are discouraged here, regardless of context. I have yet to hear why you are more qualified to speak on the topic than anyone else, but I will add my personal experience as a student - I went to some good schools and had some good teachers, but we were rarely introduced to a topic in different ways. For one thing, there simply wasn't time. The best math course I ever took was geometry. The teacher never lectured - instead, he had written a worksheet of problems for us to do during every class period. Each worksheet would start out asking deceptively simple questions, which built upon other questions or challenges to prove something true. By the end of the worksheet, you had taught yourself a new concept in geometry (or proved a series of fundamental theorems) without really realizing what was happening. If you got stuck, you were encouraged to ask the students next to you, or the teacher himself, who would wander the classroom providing hints and alternate ways of approaching the problem. There was a textbook, but we only touched it for homework problems (and occasionally as a reference).
shasta 15y ago
Here's the argument that shows that the educators are doing something wrong. I'll break it down into numbered points: 1. If you spend three weeks on only the topic of assignment, any idiot (who has been admitted to university) can master that one concept to the level required to answer this stupid simple question correctly. 2. The fact that the students failed to exhibit mastery of even this one simple point at end the of three weeks means the class moved past this very fundamental concept too quickly. 3. It follows that this study doesn't really address the question of how students would do at programming if this fundamental mental model were taught. Point 1 is the weakest, as it is justified only by common sense, but I'd put money on it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

by parfe 15y ago

dpritchett 15y ago

I read cletus's post to suggest that primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. A lot of it is budgets and politics. No need to infer that cletus believes he is a more thoughtful educator than people who spend their careers on it.

irahul 15y ago
> This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. Demonstrably true here in India as well. True that I can't speak for all of India, or you can't speak for all of US; but I believe I have enough data points for the extrapolation to be valid. I think that's enough to infer we have a problem, and it's largely ignored. > cletus believes he is a more thoughtful educator than people who spend their careers on it. I don't think it matters what cletus thinks. Conceited or not, I see his observations mostly hold in the real world.
gioele 15y ago
> primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. I would say that it is demonstrably not true in many EU countries. Maybe "non personalisation" is the tendency of lazy teachers, but I remember pretty well how my math teachers repeated the same subject thrice: the first time describing its core in an abstract way, the second time with concrete examples (apples and pears) and the third time in very little incremental steps. The first explanation was for naturally able math learner, the second for those how needed practical examples and the third for less able pupils. Some of us complained about the fact that it was a boring way to teach (and you know how horrible bored kids can be in the class) but I'd say it was worth it to have all my classmates learning more or less at the same pace with nobody left behind. Actually, I complain more about the fact that we had to change math teachers so many times because of educational reforms and budget cuts/reorganizations.
- hobin 15y ago
  Which country do you live in? I don't know about the quality of schools in general here (the Netherlands), but I've met too many people who say they "can't do math" to think very highly of our elementary educational system. Granted, though, this may have more to do with the fact that it's generally acceptable to 'just not able to do math'. (This is not to say that I think everyone can do math equally well, but I've seen some otherwise intelligent people making such comments that made me want to rip my eyes out.)
  - flaviusb 15y ago
    I think of it like Sturgeon's Law applied to humans. Most humans just are not very good at most stuff. Look at the percentage of programmers that are basically not any good at programming all and yet are able to continue being called programmers; if we apply standards of expectation uniformly, then you would expect to see even people in technical fields be able to be useless at math and have everyone basically just shrug and accept it.
tokenadult 15y ago
I read cletus's post to suggest that primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. That's how I read it too. And that is a finding of international studies of primary mathematics education. The newly industrialized countries of east Asia do much better in primary mathematics education, using textbooks (and teacher professional development to ensure that the textbooks are well applied in the classroom) such that key concepts are presented from multiple points of view, to reach as many learners as possible. The TIMSS test results http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf suggest this is working out well for those countries. A book-length description of how mathematics primary education differs between much of the United States and much of China http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0415873843 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... is an eye-opening read.

SkyMarshal 15y ago

Nice idea, but to what extent has it been implemented? Hard to find info on that. And in my own experience, differentiated instruction within the context of traditional mixed-ability, set-pace classroom instruction is still relatively weak. Further, why be an ass and post a lmgtfy link when the op is clearly not aware of the term to google. You see the contradiction there I'm sure. Next time just post a link to the search results.

parfe 15y ago
First, it's not my job to educate you. Go look it up yourself if you feel like commenting on it. The fact the original poster fabricated his post out of naked overconfident ignorance is more than enough to warrant a snide reply. His post was not a critique on current educational theory or instruction but based on his experiences as a grade schooler that might be decades out of date, and seen through the eyes of a child. Chances are your school implemented a similar style of teaching, except your teacher didn't come into a room of 3rd, 5th or 10th graders and say : "Ok students, I spent 2 weeks this summer on my "vacation" training 8 hours a day and now I will be differentiating my instruction! I sure hope you don't all grow up to be overconfident ignorant asses who can't see beyond the direct and personalized instruction I give each one of you. I hope you realize that I might be explaining these concepts to different students in a way that suits them! Also, I hope you don't make fun of the kids who are in the low classes or need the help of an in class aide. Now here are three ways to look at multiplication."
- ender7 15y ago
  Since you've been registered here almost two years, I would hope you'd be aware that snide comments are discouraged here, regardless of context. I have yet to hear why you are more qualified to speak on the topic than anyone else, but I will add my personal experience as a student - I went to some good schools and had some good teachers, but we were rarely introduced to a topic in different ways. For one thing, there simply wasn't time. The best math course I ever took was geometry. The teacher never lectured - instead, he had written a worksheet of problems for us to do during every class period. Each worksheet would start out asking deceptively simple questions, which built upon other questions or challenges to prove something true. By the end of the worksheet, you had taught yourself a new concept in geometry (or proved a series of fundamental theorems) without really realizing what was happening. If you got stuck, you were encouraged to ask the students next to you, or the teacher himself, who would wander the classroom providing hints and alternate ways of approaching the problem. There was a textbook, but we only touched it for homework problems (and occasionally as a reference).

shasta 15y ago

Here's the argument that shows that the educators are doing something wrong. I'll break it down into numbered points: 1. If you spend three weeks on only the topic of assignment, any idiot (who has been admitted to university) can master that one concept to the level required to answer this stupid simple question correctly. 2. The fact that the students failed to exhibit mastery of even this one simple point at end the of three weeks means the class moved past this very fundamental concept too quickly. 3. It follows that this study doesn't really address the question of how students would do at programming if this fundamental mental model were taught. Point 1 is the weakest, as it is justified only by common sense, but I'd put money on it.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]