Reflective Writing #6

PIDP 3210 – Assignment 1: Reflection 3

Objective

For my final reflective writing assignment, I’ve chosen to respond to Dan Meyer’s TED Talk, Math Class Needs a Makeover (2010, March). In this TED Talk, Meyer speaks of the need for math curriculum to gravitate towards creating patient problem solvers. He explains that to do this, we must focus less on the computation side of mathematics and more on the math reasoning side. The math reasoning side takes patience and a problem solving approach to actively define the problem. This talk caught my attention because I believe developing math reasoning fits into a larger societal goal of developing critical thinking skills.

Reflective

I chose this quote because I agree with the basic premise of Meyer’s argument, but disagree with the implementation. I believe Meyer to be right in wanting to develop reasoning skills. Computation, after all, is intellectual grunt work and often performed far better by machine. Reasoning, contrarily, is a human trait and ultimately where our efforts should lie. Unfortunately, Meyer’s approach of rewriting textbook problems to give next to no information and asking a question really leaves weak students to struggle. Greg Ashman in his blog post entitled What’s wrong with Dan Meyer’s TED talk? (2015, Sept. 12) agrees: “The textbook will have been designed by writers who have an implicit or explicit understanding of cognitive load. Novice learners need this structure because the capacity of the working memory is limited and so it enables novices to focus on a few salient points at a time.”

To use Meyer’s example of the water jug filling up:

The question is: How long will it take you to fill it up? First things first, we eliminate all the sub-steps. Students have to develop those, they have to formulate those. And then notice that all the information written on there is stuff you’ll need. None of it’s a distractor, so we lose that. Students need to decide, “All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the valve matter? What matters here?” Such an under-represented question in math curriculum. So now we have a water tank. How long will it take you to fill it up? And that’s it.

If a student is not exceptionally strong in math to begin with, will they know that the formulas for solving for volume rely on all of those variables? Although this may seem obvious to some, I’m confident it isn’t obvious to everyone. They very well may need to be shown all the intermediate steps to ever get to an answer.

Interpretive

I don’t think it is Meyer’s intent to suggest we refrain from teaching the basic computation skills of BEDMAS, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. His video suggests that we teach the basics through a discovery model of the students trying to define the problem. I think a far more efficient and successful model would be to teach the basics through a familiar classroom model, and only then, move onto the problem defining / patient problem solving.

Decisional

Meyer’s talk was very insightful. In reflecting on his lesson examples, it occurred to me that I routinely do exactly what he has suggested. My typical lesson plan involves: 1) introducing a skill 2) doing a plain, heavily explained example with the class 3) posing an easy question for them to model my example and finally, 4) posing a harder version of the question which requires them to ask questions and take a couple extra intellectual steps beyond mirroring. It is my opinion that this ability to take the basics and run with it, seeking out the answer, is a highly desirable attribute in tradesmen and I wish to develop it. I must concede however, certain students struggle when it comes time to think outside the box.

References

Ashman, G. (2015, Sept. 12). What’s wrong with Dan Meyer’s TED talk? Retrieved from

What’s wrong with Dan Meyer’s TED talk?

Meyer, D. (2010, March). Math Class Needs a Makeover. Retrieved from