In many ways, the article, Why Do Americans Stink at Math, shows the inconsistencies of the American educational system, and in particular, its weakness in preparation of students in the area of mathematics. Americas approach to teaching mathematics has been of considerable controversy over the past few decades as it has faced considerable decline in world ranking on producing top scores on average on achievement test globally. This has forced educators here in America to review their standards and analyze the teaching methods used today versus what’s been applied around the world with top score producing countries. What Elizabeth Green has found in this article is that the adopted techniques of top producing countries, like Japan, mirrors that the American education system but that, the way in which American teachers have come to apply these new techniques over past decades, has failed due to a few key inconsistencies in regards to communication and understanding among all educators nationally. I will share these issues that this article brings to light. The author immediately employs new learning tactics on the reader to gain maximum comprehension by associating the life experiences and knowledge in teaching of Mr. …show more content…
Magdalene Lampert and her experiences in finding new ways of teaching mathematics as a “sense making”. For Lampert, the standard ,I (student works on the problem), We(teacher /students), You(student works out the answer), was replace with her method of “You, Ya’ll, We”. This method encouraged students to identify the problem and share ideas together to test their understanding of the problem. The students could work out their wrong assumptions or formulations together and gain understanding as a group. In this scenario, the teacher is interjecting ideas as variables to guide the students to the “sense making” answer. This is exactly what Mr. Takahashi also was trying to share and implement as a
The thesis, or the main idea of the book, is that by using specific communication techniques, we can turn difficult discussions into productive learning conversations.
United States. National Center for Education Statistics. Long-Term Trends in Student Mathematics Performance. Sep. 1998. Web. 2 May 2009. .
Though standardized testing has played a part in America's education system it took several tries before it played such a large role in education like it does today. The No child left Behind Act of 2002 was the foot hold standardized testing needed in order to be implemented into schools at a national level with such force. During the 1990’s the U.S felt as though it was falling behind on the Programme for International Assessment. “After No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading”(walker 1).
The United States of America has placed low on the educational ladder throughout the years. The cause of such a low ranking is due to such heavy emphasis on standardized testing and not individual student achievement. Although the United States uses standardized testing as a crutch, it is not an effective measure of a student’s ability, a teacher’s competency, or a school’s proficiency.
Education is the foundation of American society. It empowers the youth of America to become the successful leaders this country needs for the future. Education has been one of America’s top priorities since 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. Now, education is controlled by the No Child Left Behind Act, which was launched in January 8, 2002. This act was passed with intentions from the government to provide Americans with a more superior education system. However, The No Child Left Behind Act carried many flaws which were left unseen to a vast majority of the public. This act limited American students by not allowing them to demonstrate their full academic potentials while proceeding in school. While the act was still fairly fresh, there was already evidence to prove that it had already gotten off to a bad beginning. For the crucial math and science courses, statistics showed minimal improvements which had begun around the time period in which the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. The act was also supported by a number of educators who voiced themselves by testifying against having the right to teach at their own free will. Teachers across America claimed that because of this new act, they felt a constant heaviness upon their shoulders from the state government to “Teach the test.”
The second part of this memo contains a rhetorical analysis of a journal article written by Linda Darling-Hammond. Interview The following information was conducted in an interview with Diana Regalado De Santiago, who works at Montwood High School as a mathematics teacher. In the interview, Regalado De Santiago discusses how presenting material to her students in a manner where the student actually learns is a pivotal form of communication in the field (Personal Communication, September 8, 2016).
Since the release of the report by Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December of 2010 many in the government and community are searching for ways to reform the American education system to give American students the greatest opportunity to succeed. According to the report, American students are not testing as high as other nations in the world (Duncan, 2010). There are many contributing elements that have brought America to her knees in the education system, however, the obsession with standardized testing is found to be one of the most influential downfalls.
Gelernter disagrees with the comment made by a school principal, “Drilling addition and subtraction in an age of calculators is a waste of time” (279). He reveals the bitter truth that American students are not fully prepared for college because they have poorly developed basic skills. In contrast, he comments, “No wonder Japanese kids blow the pants off American kids in math” (280). He provides information from a Japanese educator that in Japan, kids are not allowed to use calculators until high school. Due to this, Japanese kids build a strong foundation of basic math skills, which makes them perform well in mathematics.
All children learn differently and teachers, especially those who teach mathematics, have to accommodate for all children’s different capacities for learning information. When teaching mathematics, a teacher has to be able to use various methods of presenting the information in order to help the students understand the concepts they are being taught.
John Bishop of Cornell University found that nations that require standardized tests perform better on international tests compared to nations that don 't (Walberg). But the National Assessment of Educational Progress disagrees. In 2011, only thirty-five percent of U.S. 8th graders were identified as proficient in math. This places the U.S. in thirty-second place in the world (Peterson). But every state in the U.S. requires tests, so why are students performing so poorly? Phillip Harris states, “…[S]tandardized tests inadvertently create incentives for students to become superficial thinkers—to seek the quick, easy, and obvious answer.” For America to start performing well on tests again, we need to take the focus off of our test-taking skills and instead focus on the actual subject matter. To do this, the entire standardized testing system needs to be
The US education system doesn’t have: follow-through. According to Chapter 8 of Outliers, “Rice Paddies and Math Tests,” the research of rice paddies has created a cultural legacy among Asian cultures that leads to more relative success for people from those cultures. Malcolm Galdwell argues “That lesson has
Rothstein, Richard. The Way We Were?: The Myths and Realities of America’s Student Achievement. [Online] Available http://www.tcf.org/publications/education/way.we.were/Foreword.html, May 1, 2000.
The argument about whether or not standardized testing accurately measures a student's performance continues to be debated. In this paper, I would like to argue that standardized testing does not accurately measure a student's performance. After looking at various opinions of standardized testing, I will consider the subject matter in regards to external factors that can influence a student's thinking process during a standardized test, such as anxiety, stress, and any other problems the student may be encountering. As a Secondary Mathematics Education major, I will have to prepare my future students for standardized testing. Through reviewing both sides of the debate about standardized testing, I can learn how to focus on the objectives of standardized testing in order to apply them to other aspects of academics and real-life situations.
Sherley, B., Clark, M. & Higgins, J. (2008) School readiness: what do teachers expect of children in mathematics on school entry?, in Goos, M., Brown, R. & Makar, K. (eds.) Mathematics education research: navigating: proceedings of the 31st annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australia, Brisbane, Qld: MERGA INC., pp.461-465.
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.