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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Historically the US has not produced overwhelmingly confident and strong mathematicians from our high schools. This is because we focused so much on rote memorization and not at all on understanding the concepts behind the algorithms. Students who are exposed to inquiry-based learning in a constructivist context will construct their own knowledge and have a much deeper and authentic understanding of math.

I don't come down hard on either side  in that I do think students should also learn the algorithms. But it's a farce to pretend that the algorithms without understanding will work for everyone. That is how you get students making mistakes that are totally illogical in the context of a problem, but not having any concept of reasonableness of an answer or what they are actually doing.

See this video to see the kind of thing I am talking about: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html[/quote]

Are you kidding me?

You think the problem with math education in schools is that we are turning out kids who have spent all their time on rote memorization of basic math facts and algorithms, but don't really understand the principles behind the algorithms?

IF ONLY!  The at LEAST we'd be graduating kids who were capable of basic arithmetic (subtraction across zeros with decimals, percents, long division) even when the power goes out and their cash register stops working!

I agree that students also need to know that their answer is reasonable.   Not sure that Every Day Math really helps with that though.  The spiral curriculum is in vogue but doesn't seem to work for a lot of children.  Mastery learning seems a more solid approach to me.[/quote]

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