Comments on: Elementary teachers need math too

By: allen

allen — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 01:17:34 +0000

ricki wrote:

I would think that employers (and college profs) would stand up and say…

Who’d listen? Why haven’t they listened? What is it that employers and college profs aren’t doing that would entice or force them to listen, whoever they are.

By: Winston Smith

Winston Smith — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:16:35 +0000

They’re just figuring this out now?

By: wayne martin

wayne martin — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:35:18 +0000

> But I teach college (in the sciences) and am continually
> frustrated by students who donâ€™t know the basics

I very much appreciate it when working teachers post their experiences here. It’s one thing to download data, build data bases and come to conclusions about classroom performance, but it’s quite another to hear if from folks in the trenches.

By: ricki

ricki — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:20:42 +0000

Myrtle, I don’t know. But I teach college (in the sciences) and am continually frustrated by students who don’t know the basics – who have never computed an average, who have never made a simple scatterplot graph, who don’t know what x and y correspond to on a graph.

I would think that employers (and college profs) would stand up and say “Hell, no, we don’t want any more math-phobic and math-illiterate graduates!” But it never seems to happen.

and so, I take time going over stuff (even fractions…) that I remember learning in the primary grades.

By: Myrtle

Myrtle — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:38:09 +0000

How are they graduating college without knowing this?

By: Ragnarok

Ragnarok — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:34:56 +0000

Wayne,
My son uses Saxon’s Algebra 1 (7th grade). The approach is quite similar to that in the blog (IMHO). Slightly more formal, more examples, but very close.
Both explanations are very good, I think.

By: wayne martin

wayne martin — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:17:47 +0000

The blog mentioned at the bottom of JJ’s posting has a couple of explanations for “functions” and “graphing”. His approach is simple enough:

http://sk19math.blogspot.com/

Anybody have access to a 6th or 7th grade math book? How do these books deal with introducing “functions”?

By: wayne martin

wayne martin — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:41:10 +0000

> And if they canâ€™t get enough prospective teachers
> to pass, will they just throw out the new standard?

Massachusetts has had some significant problems with teachers failing qualifications testing in the recent past:

—
http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/11/teachers.test/index.html?eref=sitesearch

Massachusetts gives teacher test again
July 11, 1998
Web posted at: 9:31 p.m. EDT (0131 GMT)
From Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist

BOSTON (CNN) — Massachusetts administered its controversial teacher-certification exams again on Saturday, after 60 percent of those who took the first round of tests in April failed.
—-

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:46:29 +0000

It’s about time. Liping Ma, in Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, identified this problem years ago–and now we have *one* state doing something about it?

And if they can’t get enough prospective teachers to pass, will they just throw out the new standard?