While she goes through the explanation, the person of the right side of the split screen solves the problem in the old-fashioned way and then makes coffee.
Common core is a disaster. pic.twitter.com/iso5C1ka7P— Yara🥑 (@iStanAristotle) May 29, 2019
What I find puzzling is that the kids still have to know the multiplication table in the new method. They still have to know that 30x10=300 and so on and so forth. So, I'm not sure what the advantage is. (Although I have to admit that 30x10 is easier than 2x35, for example.)
Perhaps there is something about the process that is good for brain development and the problem solving process. Or perhaps not. I just don't know.
But can you imagine sitting down in later life as an adult and having to take the time to go through this process?
As a bit of an aside, I have to say that I am also not sure of the teaching technique which is all lecture with no feedback from the class. I can well imagine the average child going well off into daydream land. At least I think I would have.
Here's ↓ one supportive response from the original thread. I am not sure that I agree with it, but I guess it states the pedagogical theory.
They’re teaching number sense instead of just an algorithm for solving the problem. The way on the right is way faster, but it isn’t teaching them to learn fluency with numbers. The way on the left teaches kids to think about how numbers can be manipulated to solve problems.
My follow-up to ↑.
I asked Danica (grade 6) if this is how she does it. Not exactly, apparently. She said that they are taught several methods, and they can pick the one that suits them best. Now, that sounds better.
Needless to say, better minds than mine have developed these methods, but there's still no harm in asking questions.
Does this imply that that those who learned the old way are not fluent with numbers? Who developed this system if it wasn't people who had been taught in the old way?And here's another defense of the method ↓.
Two-digit multiplication is hard for kids to understand when they first learn it. This method uses skills they already know (1x1 and multiplying by 0) to teach it. Eventually, they’ll be able to breeze through the standard algorithm because they have a concrete understanding.My response to this ↑. Again, more of a question than a refutation.
Is there empirical evidence to support the claim that this method is easier to learn? And, if it's a temporary step in the learning/solving process, when do they transition? Is the transition difficult?As I have said I don't know the answers, but I am skeptical that this method gets kids to where we want them to be easier, better or faster.
I asked Danica (grade 6) if this is how she does it. Not exactly, apparently. She said that they are taught several methods, and they can pick the one that suits them best. Now, that sounds better.
Needless to say, better minds than mine have developed these methods, but there's still no harm in asking questions.
9 comments:
She lost me at the box...and I'm stilll drinking my first cuppa coffee, much too early for me to be doing math. By the way, in high school in the 50s I was taught "New Math" and I've been doing pretty well for the hundreds of times I've multiplied with whatever that technique was.
I would have agreed with you 100% until I tried to teach the YD algebraic problem solving the way I learned it. Chaos. She could look at an equation and solve it, but could not tell me how and could not do it in steps.
And, yes, I made the offspring memorize times tables. So did the mother of my granddaughter, but the way the grandkid learned math was so weird I could not follow it. That she was doing in in French did not help. Sigh.
We were instructed to teach the kids new math and frankly, I just didn't like it.
I do not see how this is useful. I do think using an abacus teaches tens and ones, etc, but this other method is just busy work.
Yes, sorry, I learned it the same way as on the right.
New math leaves me (c)old.
In some places, they are abandoning the new math. It has not proven effective apparently.
I taught math in elementary school. Luckily retired before common core came in. I had advanced math (2 years above grade level) and showed them an alternative method for multiplying. We would have contests to see who could do it faster and the alternative frequently won. Can't draw the box for you here but it was different than shown in that video.
That's ridiculous. Far too complicated. I'll do it the old way that I learned 60 years ago! It still works for me.
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