Common Core Math

[hayden_horn 11365]

5 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

This is how I always do it my teachers didn't suck like yours and I was never counted off if I could explain how I got the answer. It's also complete bullshit that they counted off for you considering you were actually doing it their way but the steps were in a slightly different order and apparently they were too dumb to realize it.

well, it probably didn't help that i was a bit of a slacker and more than a little bit of a smartass.

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

46 minutes ago, HOOKEM4 said:

Pretty much.

Also, whatever they are doing is not common core I guess. Look if it helps make math easier for people I am all for it. Whatever it is they are trying to get him to do. He did all the problems in his head correctly and they were all marked wrong, not because of the result, but because of the path to the result. I remember this being a big deal in school. I was really bad at showing my work. That is all this is I assume. Get in line and march to the beat. That is essentially all school is anyways. 

I'll respond to this post out of the many that are similar:

"Doing it in your head" is fine up to a point. But at some point, the problems become so difficult that they can't be done in your head, unless you are rainman. At that point, you have to have a conceptual understanding. The only way a teacher can tell if a student is developing that conceptual understanding is if they "Show their work". If they can't "show their work" they probably aren't developing a conceptual understanding, and at some point aren't going to be able to solve the problems. Your kid needs to get used to them being marked wrong now, when he can't show his work, because at some point, he's going to be getting them marked wrong because he doesn't have the ability to solve the problem.

 

As for those saying that memorizing an algorithm is enough, I don't even know what to say. You can teach a moron to follow steps, but do you want a moron designing cars, or teaching your kids, or __________. For a moron doing a moron's job, maybe that's good enough, but maybe not. Two easy examples:

My total at my local fast food restaurant is 7.27. If I give them a ten, they follow an algorithm: punch in the order, punch in ten dollars, read the change, give it back to me. But if I give them 10.27, they don't know what to do, because their algorithm can't handle the 10.27 payment. And god help them if I give them 10.02 just to avoid the pennies.

I remember being the manager at Barton Springs back in the day. We would get at risk youth to be the cashiers. Full day in the summer, they could bring in thousand of dollars. They can follow an algorithm and divide 547 by 23 just fine, but filling out a cash reconciliation sheet at the end of the day was like asking them to translate the rosetta stone. Because they had no conceptual understanding of basic math.

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

33 minutes ago, TexasBeta said:

Lol - you are not kidding.. The kids have a syllabus for each class. Of course it is online. The old tactile man in me has to have it on paper. My kids think I'm a caveman and destroyer of trees.

Don't feel bad about the tree thing. Tress that are made into paper are farmed. You might as well feel bad about destroying corn.

Trees made into lumber however are a different story...

[jimmyjazz 46351]

4 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

As for those saying that memorizing an algorithm is enough, I don't even know what to say. You can teach a moron to follow steps, but do you want a moron designing cars, or teaching your kids, or __________. For a moron doing a moron's job, maybe that's good enough, but maybe not. Two easy examples:

My total at my local fast food restaurant is 7.27. If I give them a ten, they follow an algorithm: punch in the order, punch in ten dollars, read the change, give it back to me. But if I give them 10.27, they don't know what to do, because their algorithm can't handle the 10.27 payment. And god help them if I give them 10.02 just to avoid the pennies.

Well that's a little oversimplified.  I ran the register at Wendy's for 2 years in HS because the math was trivially easy for me.  There is an "algorithm" to figure out the change for any amount you hand me, and it can be taught.  It doesn't require any calculators, electronic registers, etc.  It just requires a brain.

Being adept at applying abstract math is not a sign of weakness.  Being unable to use those constructs in the real world is.  I've seen things stated on this thread that I completely disagree with, and I'm over 30 years into an engineering career where I pretty much operate on the R&D leading edge most days.  

Edited February 7, 2019 by jimmyjazz

[hayden_horn 11365]

5 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'll respond to this post out of the many that are similar:

"Doing it in your head" is fine up to a point. But at some point, the problems become so difficult that they can't be done in your head, unless you are rainman. At that point, you have to have a conceptual understanding. The only way a teacher can tell if a student is developing that conceptual understanding is if they "Show their work". If they can't "show their work" they probably aren't developing a conceptual understanding, and at some point aren't going to be able to solve the problems. Your kid needs to get used to them being marked wrong now, when he can't show his work, because at some point, he's going to be getting them marked wrong because he doesn't have the ability to solve the problem.

 

As for those saying that memorizing an algorithm is enough, I don't even know what to say. You can teach a moron to follow steps, but do you want a moron designing cars, or teaching your kids, or __________. For a moron doing a moron's job, maybe that's good enough, but maybe not. Two easy examples:

My total at my local fast food restaurant is 7.27. If I give them a ten, they follow an algorithm: punch in the order, punch in ten dollars, read the change, give it back to me. But if I give them 10.27, they don't know what to do, because their algorithm can't handle the 10.27 payment. And god help them if I give them 10.02 just to avoid the pennies.

I remember being the manager at Barton Springs back in the day. We would get at risk youth to be the cashiers. Full day in the summer, they could bring in thousand of dollars. They can follow an algorithm and divide 547 by 23 just fine, but filling out a cash reconciliation sheet at the end of the day was like asking them to translate the rosetta stone. Because they had no conceptual understanding of basic math.

reminds me of this:

 

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

On 2/5/2019 at 10:56 PM, hayden_horn said:

i would get to the right answer the wrong way. "how did you solve for 12*5?" my teacher might ask. "well, i did 10*5, which is fifty and added 10, which is 2*5. that got me to 60." wrong. i was supposed to do the whole 2*5 = 10, carry the one, and do the 5*1 + 1 thing. that seemed too many steps to me and was counter-intuitive.

 

 

This type of thing is exactly what common core, if my understanding of common core is correct, which it may not be, is trying to avoid.

edit to clarify: "This type of thing" refers to counting your answer wrong because you didn't follow an algorithm and instead showed a conceptual understanding of place value and all that.

Edited February 7, 2019 by High Plains Drifter

[hayden_horn 11365]

9 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'll respond to this post out of the many that are similar:

"Doing it in your head" is fine up to a point. But at some point, the problems become so difficult that they can't be done in your head, unless you are rainman. At that point, you have to have a conceptual understanding. The only way a teacher can tell if a student is developing that conceptual understanding is if they "Show their work". If they can't "show their work" they probably aren't developing a conceptual understanding, and at some point aren't going to be able to solve the problems. Your kid needs to get used to them being marked wrong now, when he can't show his work, because at some point, he's going to be getting them marked wrong because he doesn't have the ability to solve the problem.

 

As for those saying that memorizing an algorithm is enough, I don't even know what to say. You can teach a moron to follow steps, but do you want a moron designing cars, or teaching your kids, or __________. For a moron doing a moron's job, maybe that's good enough, but maybe not. Two easy examples:

My total at my local fast food restaurant is 7.27. If I give them a ten, they follow an algorithm: punch in the order, punch in ten dollars, read the change, give it back to me. But if I give them 10.27, they don't know what to do, because their algorithm can't handle the 10.27 payment. And god help them if I give them 10.02 just to avoid the pennies.

I remember being the manager at Barton Springs back in the day. We would get at risk youth to be the cashiers. Full day in the summer, they could bring in thousand of dollars. They can follow an algorithm and divide 547 by 23 just fine, but filling out a cash reconciliation sheet at the end of the day was like asking them to translate the rosetta stone. Because they had no conceptual understanding of basic math.

also, i want to be clear on this thread. i think my way of doing things fucked me, because once we got to higher level math, i didn't get it. so i completely agree. only later in life have i developed a fundamental understanding of how math works. 

[TwiceHorn 31646]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

I would also comment that cultural expectations around education/equality of opportunity/discipline in Singapore are SIGNIFICANTLY different than in the United States.  So that would probably account for quite a bit of any achievement gap.

That whole hitting kids with a stick thing may have something to do with it.

[TwiceHorn 31646]

I have a question for the educators and those knowledgeable about CC and other techniques.  Does this apply solely to arithmetic (adding/multiplying) or does it have application in higher math, such as algebra and geometry?

It seemed to me that math started seriously eluding people at about algebra.  Something about getting what the numbers symbolize or reflect onto paper, I guess.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Slorch,  can you give us an example of the math your new hires are unable to do because of their common core learning?   Can you tell us exactly what it is that you have to unteach them and exactly what it is you’re teaching them in place of that? 

I said the similar thought processes fuck them up.

When they get rid of the 12 boxes on a 2 box solution, they get to where they are going. Some of them insist...LOLz.  “That’s how they said it was in skool”

 

But you’d be amazed at how many people struggle with supersimple shit like margin and net profit.

 

Yes these are Tier I schools that feed our hiring. Some aggy, butthat’s not the issue here.

Edited February 7, 2019 by slorch

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

Since I'm not getting fuck done at work today, I'll follow up on this post:

 

1 hour ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I remember being the manager at Barton Springs back in the day. We would get at risk youth to be the cashiers. Full day in the summer, they could bring in thousand of dollars. They can follow an algorithm and divide 547 by 23 just fine, but filling out a cash reconciliation sheet at the end of the day was like asking them to translate the rosetta stone. Because they had no conceptual understanding of basic math.

So I tried to teach these kids an algorithm of sorts so I wouldn't have to keep doing their cash reconciliation every shift. I'd say "Now count up the number of dimes and write that number in this box. Now multiply that by 10 because a dime equals ten cents. Same for pennies, quarters nickels, dollars, fives, tens, etc. Then add up all the totals and write the final total in this box." I'd come back later and they would have literally multiplied 27 dimes by 10 and not 0.10, giving a dime the same value as a ten dollar bill. Because they have no conceptual understanding of basic math. Common core at least tries to teach that conceptual understanding. Which of course makes 2nd grade math "harder".

I'm not saying the algorithms do not have value. They certainly do. As does memorizing the times tables. But the conceptual understanding should come first, or at least concurrently.

Most of us learned the algorithms first, and figured out the conceptual on our own, if we were able. The ones who can't do that go through life without a basic understanding of math. I think there is a lot of those people out there. Commom Core is at least trying to address that.

[tbone_ 14211]

I'll tell you what's infuriating: no textbooks.  I can't tell you the number of times I've had to fire up the google machine to help a kid with their homework -- it's easily in triple digits -- because the process being taught is not documented except in the classroom.  Guess what, I'm not in the classroom.  I know fuck all about your new "double diagonal" method of division, but if I had a textbook in front of me I could figure it out in a couple of minutes and help you teach my kids.

This right here. Got damn.

[WBT 20703]

16 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

"Doing it in your head" is fine up to a point. But at some point, the problems become so difficult that they can't be done in your head, unless you are rainman. At that point, you have to have a conceptual understanding. The only way a teacher can tell if a student is developing that conceptual understanding is if they "Show their work". If they can't "show their work" they probably aren't developing a conceptual understanding, and at some point aren't going to be able to solve the problems. Your kid needs to get used to them being marked wrong now, when he can't show his work, because at some point, he's going to be getting them marked wrong because he doesn't have the ability to solve the problem.

Showing work for the sake of showing work used to drive me crazy.  Writing out all the steps just indicates that you can execute the algorithm.  It doesn't show a conceptual understanding.  

[austingirl 2192]

On 2/5/2019 at 10:43 PM, hayden_horn said:

here is the thing.many of that engineer grunt work is getting outsourced, but the creative innovation is staying in-house. i deal with companies all the time in my line of work that have factories in china, taiwan, india, etc. they will have creative engineer types that are ethnic, but they make sure those folks are living in the states and well-paid.

i saw the same thing in japan. brilliant folks raised by rote memorization afraid AF to think outside the box.

full disclosure, i'm not an engineer who got lost in math circa middle school to high school, and finally dropped out of AP calculus because i just could not catch up. my ability to bullshit was eclipsed by the material. i got by thinking outside the box, but that doesn't work in classes like geometry (fuck proofs) and pre-calc and calc. 

i'm now a liberal arts english/history major with a classical civ minor who does math for a living. 

the funny thing: higher level math escaped me. chemistry balancing? fuck moles, whatever those are. but when i got into college physics, it was an a class for me. i excelled in astronomy, and outlining the math of how a star fails or how gravity actually works. who knows how things attach to the brain?

that's why i'm generally in support of common core. it's just a way to find the key to the brain, instead of just letting those apt students succeed and everyone else wash out.

Haven't read all the responses but this was me. High school physics was the first time complex math made sense to me. It was because I wasn't doing math just to do it - it was math with a purpose. I always want to know the "why" behind what I'm doing, and my math teachers were of the "just because you have to learn it" mentality. Math made sense when it was part of a bigger picture, not the picture itself.

I admit that I don't always understand how my 5th grader has been taught to do something, and I find it frustrating, but when we figure it out I usually find that he's learning the number sense approach, which I never learned in school. My husband gets it right off the bat, though, and I suspect it's because he was like a lot of you and figured out the number sense part on his own. Whatever we call it, I'm happy with any method that helps my kids internalize and understand the work.