Discovery Learning; More from Math Coach

Dr. Wayne Wickelgren, author of Math Coach; a Parent's Guide to Helping Children Succeed in Math, has much to say about "discovery learning" and the "new math", often called "fuzzy math" (and which he calls "Standards math").

Here are some of his insights:

"The most pervasive theme echoed throughout the Standards is their emphasis on student exploration and discovery. Instead of presenting information to the class, Standards math teachers ask their students to discover mathematical concepts while solving math problems. "Typically, students break up into small groups of four or so to solve a problem. The teacher circulates among the groups to observe the discussions but otherwise does not interfere with their learning by providing too much information."

"This framework is intended to let each child's natural creativity in math blossom, enabling children to discover important concepts and problem solving methods on their own. . . Teachers encourage students in the groups to do a lot of talking and writing about their thinking process that led to a solution . . ."

"To facilitate discussion, the groups are often working on math problems that are somewhat different from traditional computational or story problems. . . grounded in real-world situations. They are open-ended and contain many parts and many possible answers. . ."

"One example: A middle school math teacher demonstrates a pendulum made from a string and a weight and asks students to construct a pendulum, investigate how it functions, and formulate questions that arise."

"Traditional problems by contrast, have a single correct answer and focus on closely related mathematical ideas and facts."

Dr. Wickelgren explains that hands-on, real-world activities dominates "Standards" math classrooms. Students are never encouraged to memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts, but rather to manipulate objects to find the answers, rather than using pencil and paper, repeating the activity each time a set of facts are presented.

"Memorization is regarded as dull for kids and also ineffective as a learning method, as it seems at odds with really understanding the material."

All teachers know the value of manipulating objects to teach the four basic operations, but for a child to have to repeatedly group objects to solve 8 X 6 is standard operating procedure in a "fuzzy math" classroom.

Dr. Wickelgren also describes the organization of the textbooks:

Rather than dividing a year by topics, such as two-digit multiplication, fractions, long division, and decimals, the year is organized into group projects which link to other subjects to create interdisciplinary studies. Rather look at how the textbook is organized:

"A year's worth of mathematics might look like this: A Wagon Train's Journey West, A Genetic Study of Fruit Fly Reproduction, Managing a Supermarket, A Month in the Life of a Real Estate Broker, A Voyage to Mars."

The "fuzzy math" crowd design these activities because they believe that prior to adolescence, children's minds can handle such "concrete" mathematical concepts, mentioned above, "but are not mature enough to handle abstract numbers and operations."

And so your child, being too immature to memorize facts, may be asked to design and create a pretty portfolio with attractive bindings to hold their writings about how they feel about math. All of this is during math class!

Dr. Wickelgren acknowledges such positive features of Standards math as "emphasis on understanding, solving more challenging problems, enriching math curriculum with more probability. . . early study of coordinate geometry". But he also warns of the perils of the "discovery learning", which will need to be discussed in a later post.

[Dr. Wickelgren also acknowledges that the Standards have been modified, but warns that the changes are slow to make their way down to the classroom, especially since there are so many who refuse to see the error in the "new math" approach. Curriculum writers take it very personally. Their "works" are "their babies". ]