New Math: Everyday Math

[angerona]

igorlord сегодня ходил на собрание в нашей школе по поводу обучения математики. Там рассказывали, какой из методов используется в этой школе. Есть несколько распространенных в Америке curriculums: Terc Investigations, Everyday Math, Singapore Math, и т.д. В школах нашего города используется Terc Investigations, в школе Пухтышкина -- Everyday Math

Comments

[ant_fugue]

If my local public school decided to teach Everyday Math as their primary curriculum, I would then consider that my child's math education is mostly my own affair, and that she will be getting nice supplementary skills at school - how to do interesting mind-expanding algorithms and group projects. In other words, I would appreciate that my school is working hard at math enrichment, while my job will be to provide basic math education in a Kumon-like fashion.

If my private school did that, I would have issues along the lines, "Ok, what are we paying here for, Singapore math anyone???", but once again, as long as you don't rely on EveryDay Math to teach your son mathematical proficiency, it may work out well.

In addition, you have an excellent resource in RMS, which is obviously a pretty unique advantage since they won't sell their materials to people outside your geographical area. ;-)

[angerona]

What math curriculum does your daughter's school use?

[ant_fugue]

Our school uses their own curriculum, geared to pass the Maryland school exams. Other than terminology (children are taught to think in terms of "number sentences" instead of "equations"), it seems fine. Last year, she had to pass a test of adding and subtracting 40 problems along the lines of "7+8" and "21-12" in under 4 minutes with an 80% passing score which took us a couple of months of daily home study to master; something similar is coming this semester with the multiplication table.

We are memorizing the multiplication table now. :-)

[meshko]

Yes, we have number sentences too.

[ant_fugue]

It's not a bad idea, it just made our transition from another state harder because our daughter was mis-classified into a lower math class than what she had the skills for. But, in retrospect, it really built her self-confidence when she studied with her father for a semester and was able to skip an entire year of math instruction based on mid-year placement tests (transferred from first semester first grade math to second semester second grade math, highest offered at the time).

[angerona]

They devised their own curriculum? Most schools use a curriculum geared to pass the state test, but most of them buy this curriculum from third parties.

[ant_fugue]

That's what it says on our website.

http://www.hcpss.org/academics/mathematics_elem_phil.shtml

[mathdad]

I think that the schools are likely to teach to the lowest denominator, whether it is "everyday math" or something else. Especially in math, the lowest level is just too low. So I don't expect the school to teach my kids math. However, local Russian school provides a structured way for my 6yo to try her hand at harder problems.

Also, the curriculum is secondary to the quality of the teacher. Fundamentally, does the teacher know enough math? Does he/she like math? If not, the instruction becomes robotic and boring and will turn off even a capable student.

[ant_fugue]

Hmmmm, does YOUR Russian school sell their materials? :-)

I don't agree about the lowest common denominator as soon as kids get separated into levels. However, it sometimes happens that the school will kind of present the material, and we really expand it at home.

[mathdad]

I can email you their homeworks, if you are interested. I have saved
most of them. Not sure if these would be at the right level, perhaps a touch too low.

[ant_fugue]

Could you e-mail us a couple of the ones you would consider challenging? My hope is that Valentina would find them straight-forward since she is in 2nd grade, but if not, then it would be a great help to us to see Maya's assignments!