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Teaching Too-Hard Math Concepts Does Students No Favors
By Joseph Ganem
We are in the midst of a paradox in math education. As more states strive to improve math curricula and raise standardized test scores, more students show up to college unprepared for college-level math. In Maryland, 49 percent of high school graduates take noncredit remedial math courses in college, before they can take math courses for credit. In many cases, incoming college students cannot do basic arithmetic, even after passing all high school math tests. Recently, it was reported that student math achievement actually grew faster in the years before the No Child Left Behind law.
Much of the problem arises from a blind focus on raising test scores instead of teaching students to understand math. As a college physics professor and parent of three school-age children, I’ve seen how little understanding is conveyed by the grade-school math curricula. For example, the problems assigned to my children have become progressively more difficult through the years, to the point of absurdity. My eighth-grade daughter asked me one evening how to perform matrix inversions, a technique I teach in my sophomore-level college course on mathematical methods for physics majors.
On another night, my eighth-grader brought home a word problem that was easy for me to do with my knowledge of calculus. However, it took me a lot of thought to arrive at an explanation comprehensible to an eighth-grader. My other daughter struggled through a high-school trigonometry course filled with problems I might assign to upper-class physics majors.
At the same time, I work the summer orientation sessions at Loyola University Maryland, registering incoming freshmen for classes. Time and again, students cannot pass the placement exam for college calculus. Many cannot pass the exam for pre-calculus, and that saddles them with a noncredit remedial math course. Without the ability to take college-level math, the choices students have for majors are severely limited. It means not majoring in any of the sciences, engineering, computer, business or social science programs.
yoskye
19 days ago
6 comments
Well said! I struggle with this daily although I teach seventh grade English. The administration, parents and even students are focusing more on the grades and not the knowledge aspect. It doesn't matter if the child has gained a love for books or is more confident speaking publicly because these are not measured through test scores. But to me, that is worth a lot more than that A+
viola23
20 days ago
6 comments
I agree because in life (if you're not a carpenter) you will only get to use the basics (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), and percentage when you go shopping, grocery shopping, or selling. In eighth grade I didn't even know these things that these children are learning about, I'm in college and I still haven't gotten to a point where professors teach that sort of stuff!!! That's insane. I'm majoring in math and I will never push a child that far!!!
kimtaylor
21 days ago
258 comments
I agree we need to learn the basics in elementary school, addition, subtraction, etc. However, When you go to Macy's, Olive Garden or Mc Donald's, the cashier doesn't use paper and pencil. Computers (calculators) are used. We live in a computer age. We are no longer in the Industrial Revolution, so let's come into the 21st century.
computer zubehör