Singapore Math works great in Singapore. But a Washington, D.C. school is struggling to .transplant a “math miracle,” reports the Washington Post.
Most D.C. elementary schools use Everyday Math, which left students with a poor grasp of number operations, says Nuhad Jamal, Bruce-Monroe’s instructional coach. The “emphasis on games and conceptual understanding” was “a good fit for kids with strong fundamental skills, Jamal believed, but not for those with weak foundations.” So the school switched to Singapore Math, which teaches fewer concepts to mastery.
The District’s student population is highly mobile, but the Singapore curriculum builds carefully from year to year, making it more difficult for new arrivals in the upper elementary grades or at mid-year.
The school, where nearly 60 percent of the 400 students are Hispanic, uses a dual-language program. Classrooms have a mix of English- and Spanish-dominant students who split time between the two languages. But without Spanish versions of the Singapore textbooks, teachers had difficulty getting ideas across. . . .
Even in English, Singapore math does not come easily to many American teachers. Experts say it takes one to two years to really learn the system. The no-frills textbooks lack teacher editions and other aids that are part of U.S. math packages such as “Everyday Mathematics.” Singapore’s elementary instructors receive significantly more math than their U.S. counterparts, who are often generalists.
So far, Bruce-Monroe’s math scores are down.
Some 2,000 U.S. schools have tried Singapore Math, but no large district has adopted the curriculum, the Post reports. The fact that it requires elementary teachers to understand math well has to be a serious obstacle.
Update: A math teacher talks about learning how to teach Singapore Math on the Daily Riff.
-->Filed Under: Education Tagged With: D.C., Everyday Math, mobility, Singapore Math, teachers
About JoanneComments
Rob says: June 10, 2011 at 9:01 am>The fact that it requires elementary teachers to understand math well has to be a serious obstacle.
Sigh, I’m sure you’re right, but it’s sure depressing. We’re not talking calculus here, just things like the associative property of arithmetic or long division.
A society whose teachers can’t deal with arithmetic is doomed.
Cardinal Fang says: June 10, 2011 at 9:26 amWe’re talking fractions. Singapore Math fourth graders are expected to add and subtract fractions, something alien to many American grade school teachers, and many American college freshmen.
http://www.singaporemath.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/pl_pm4atest.pdf
Allison says: June 10, 2011 at 9:39 am–The no-frills textbooks lack teacher editions and other aids that are part of U.S. math packages such as “Everyday Mathematics.”
This is misleading at best. The Primary Mathematics series books have instructor’s guides. Other version of the textbooks have been adapted to the US market, and do have more of the typical scope-sequence pacing that American books.
But what they don’t have is inane analogies and activities where students write sentences about how they think about math. They have a lot of math. Teachers can’t just move to it with 2 days of training (or even 5 days of training), but that’s about all they get.
Many of our elementary teachers do not understand place value or the standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. They don’t understand the difference between division and division with remainder. And fractions and decimals are well beyond them.
Until that’s fixed, changing textbooks isn’t going to help much.
Geena says: June 10, 2011 at 9:41 amI’m using singapore math 6 with my 6th grade daughter. It does come with a teacher’s book so I don’t know why the author wrote that; however, it definitely assumes that the teacher understands basic math! I think most elementary teachers in the US would need intensive workshops to learn how to teach singapore math due to their poor understanding of the subject. Since I love math, even though I’m not a wiz at it, I enjoy working through the singapore curriculum because it is helping me become a better teacher and a more flexible thinker with regards to math problems.
Happy Elf Mom says: June 10, 2011 at 10:33 amHas the writer taken a look at the textbooks and seen what it would be like to teach from them? Our school district was upgrading to a newer version of Everyday Math and kindly gave me a set of old teacher manuals, student journals, etc. The worksheets themselves aren’t problematic so long as you don’t allow children to use calculators, etc. and teach the concepts.
But the work! OH, I do not know for the life of me how public schoolteachers do it. Each lesson, you must plan ahead of time which journal to get out, which “math masters” item to xerox, get stuff out for games, etc. WHAT a pain. Much easier by far to go lesson by lesson by lesson in Singapore Mathematics. Almost never do they ask for preplanned items (EM asks for things like bread ties and straws and assorted odds and ends on a regular basis!) and the curriculum goes through step by step by step.
Done? Move on to the next lesson. Some lessons, we’d spend three or four days on. Other times, we find ourselves able to get through an entire lesson in a day.
The only relative drawback (and an easily correctable one with a weekly “review” sheet, perhaps) is that SM doesn’t do much review. Some of its English is a bit stilted (for example “pots of plant” instead of “potted plants) but it is workable.
I have zero teacher training and have been able to work with this program at home. FYI my nine-year-old is now in high school algebra…which… I failed in high school. My point being…there’s really no reason *every* teacher couldn’t do Singapore Maths. EM is doable too, but *whoo* there is a lot of planning involved and it would drive me nuts if I had to do it on a schedule. We just used some of the very excellent worksheets and left the “how do you feel about math?” type sheets blank. 
SuperSub says: June 10, 2011 at 12:00 pm“My point being…there’s really no reason *every* teacher couldn’t do Singapore Maths”
Unless, of course, those teachers have the mathematical ability of slugs, of which I have met a few. I knew of one elementary school teacher who was mystified how I could calculate sales tax in my head.
Roger Sweeny says: June 10, 2011 at 12:35 pmBut the work! OH, I do not know for the life of me how public schoolteachers do it. Each lesson, you must plan ahead of time which journal to get out, which “math masters” item to xerox, get stuff out for games, etc. WHAT a pain. … (EM asks for things like bread ties and straws and assorted odds and ends on a regular basis!),
Perhaps that is a feature rather than a bug.
1. Elementary teachers get good at making and following activity plans, especially if someone does most of the planning for them (“For the next lesson, get ____, copy ____,make sure students have _____.”). You don’t have to know the material that well.
2. It keeps kids occupied. Even in the elementary grades, a lot of school is day care.
Crimson Wife says: June 10, 2011 at 1:00 pmI’ve used Singapore Primary Math 3A-4B in our homeschool. It does have a teacher’s guide but does *NOT* have daily scripted lessons like many curricula.
It also assumes the student can make conceptual leaps rather than walking him/her through it step-by-step-by-step. I’ve got a bright child who can usually make those leaps just fine but for certain topics I’ve had to supplement with a different program (Math Mammoth).
A program based on the Singapore way of teaching math that is more step-by-step is Math in Focus: The Singapore Approach from Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. The scope & sequence of MIF appears somewhat behind Singapore Primary Math by the 4th grade level, and the MIF “Enrichment” book appears less challenging than the Primary Math Intensive Practice one. For a bright student, Primary Math would therefore remain the better choice. But for average ones, MIF would probably be more appropriate.
anon says: June 10, 2011 at 3:30 pm“The fact that it requires elementary teachers to understand math well has to be a serious obstacle.”
Surprise, surprise, surprise. One has to be able understand math and perform computation to teach it well. Whowouldathunkit? Certainly not ed schools.
“The no-frills textbooks lack teacher editions and other aids…”
I taiuht for years and never once used a teacher edition or manuals. I found them either redundant or useless. But, then, I knew my subjects.
Bill says: June 10, 2011 at 3:40 pmI figure out sales tax every day in my head…it’s not hard to figure out that if the sales tax is 8.1 cents on the dollar, a $10 purchase (for all taxable items) will be 81 cents.
This isn’t rocket science, it’s just basic math skilled honed over and over through endless drills in grades 1-6 when I attended public school. How many kids know their multiplication tables inside and out… 12 x 11 = 132, 5 x 9 = 45, etc.
Fractions are something that one used to learn in elementary school, and by definition, unless the fraction is improper (numerator is larger than the denominator), the value of a fraction will always be some value between 0 and 1 (inclusive), with the exception that the denominator cannot be zero (0), as division by zero is undefined.
If the parents and teachers in elementary school (grades 1-5) have weak math skills, the student is going to have a miserable time learning math properly (i.e. – without the use of calculators or other questionable aids).
On a side note, here is a link from one of our local newspapers questioning a fact about our state’s high school graduation rate being inflated for YEARS:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jun/10/district-ready-confront-reality-high-school-gradua/
makes for some pretty sad reading, IMO…
Mark Roulo says: June 10, 2011 at 4:02 pm“…unless the fraction is improper (numerator is larger than the denominator), the value of a fraction will always be some value between 0 and 1 (inclusive), with the exception that the denominator cannot be zero (0), as division by zero is undefined.”
Between -1 and +1, exclusive. Both the numerator and the denominator are integers (with the restriction you mentioned that the denominator cannot be zero)
Bill says: June 10, 2011 at 4:20 pmPoint taken, though I rarely work with negative fractions, they do indeed exist
Barry Garelick says: June 10, 2011 at 5:13 pmThe Post article (for which I notice comments are closed; wow, that was fast!) mentions that the school had major disruption problems due to Rhee wanting to shut down the school, and it also mentions that the school didn’t stage the introduction of Singapore Math in the early grades first so that students had a basis. Sticking a fourth grader into Singapore Math after three years of Everyday Math borders on child cruelty. Singapore Math builds upon itself and by fourth grade, students have acquired various skills and concepts whose mastery has been developed upon in the three previous grades, as opposed to Everyday Math’s spiraling and exposure method of teaching math. Is it any wonder test scores went down? It also mentions Montgomery County using Singapore math “for research purposes” in 2000. Interesting that Montgomery County is spinning it that way.
Cal says: June 10, 2011 at 8:12 pmI would never believe without huge amounts of evidence that Singapore Math would work for anything other than bright kids–who may or may not struggle with math. Under no circumstances would it be my tenth pick as a curriculum for kids who struggle with math.
In California, elementary teachers have to pass a math test that means they will have the knowledge they need. It’s not rocket science.
Crimson Wife says: June 10, 2011 at 10:38 pmSimply passing a multiple choice test is no guarantee that the teachers actually understand arithmetic. I always did well on standardized math tests because I have a good memory. But until I started using Asian-based programs in our homeschool, I had no clue *WHY* the algorithms worked. It was all rote plug-n-chug. It isn’t rocket science, but there’s much more to elementary school math than appears at first glance.
Cal says: June 10, 2011 at 11:29 pmIt’s amazing how so many people have the short-term memory of a gnat. You all do realize that teachers with even fewer standards to meet managed to teach kids math for years, right?
Cal says: June 10, 2011 at 11:35 pmSorry, hit enter by accident.
But no, most of you want to make the teaching of elementary school math some intensely challenging and cognitively demanding process that requires special skills that our stupid elementary school teachers just can’t manage.
Somehow, however, most of our kids show mastery anyway–even though most of them don’t have micromanaging parents (homeschoolers or not) who think their kids can’t learn a thing unless they take on the task themselves.
Our teachers aren’t that stupid. And elementary school math isn’t that hard for anyone of average cognitive ability or higher. Which means the kids of everyone posting here are just fine. Teaching math to kids of low cognitive ability is incredibly difficult–in fact, it’s arguable we don’t really know how to do it yet–and there’s no evidence that advanced knowledge of math will make *that* task (teaching low ability kids) more successful.
So many different ways for people to be either stupid, wrong, or both.
Crimson Wife says: June 11, 2011 at 7:41 amI’m not satisfied with my kids having the kind of rote calculation ability that I got from my math instruction growing up. Of course I want them to be able to quickly and accurately solve equations. However, that’s not enough if they hope to compete in the global marketplace. They’re going to be up against all the Asian and European students who clean the U.S.’s clock on comparative math tests. Hanushek found that 12 countries had more than double the percentage of 8th graders scoring in the “advanced” range in math.
I don’t think it’s particularly difficult for teachers to learn the concepts in arithmetic, but they have to be motivated enough to want to improve their own understanding. The best chance we have for that IMHO is during pre-service training. I think the Singapore math teacher training course (using the Parker & Baldridge textbook Elementary Math for Teachers) should be required for all would-be elementary schoolteachers. Even if the district where they wind up teaching uses a different math curriculum, the conceptual knowledge gained will be helpful.
Cal says: June 11, 2011 at 8:20 amCrimson, that’s just silly. Teach your kid if you want, but if you think it’s because public schools coiuldn’t do better, you’re kidding yourself.
As for your training plan for teachers, notice that you seem to assume they aren’t motivated. Again, you’re pretty clueless about what is required for the average elementary school teacher in most states, and their understanding is adequate for what they need to do if they can pass the test.
You don’t think that’s enough? So what?
Try and keep these ideas in your mind simultaneously:
1) White and Asian kids are learning math fine. They could be doing more, but to the extent that they aren’t, it’s not teacher incompetence but fear of making the achievement gap larger that prevents this.
2) Black and Hispanic kids are not, as groups, learning math well. The reasons have little to do with teacher ability and everything to do with their average cognitive ability and, to a lesser degree, their income and interest.
Curriculum choices are highly dependent on student cognitive ability, and we refuse to recognize this. So any discussion about curriculum is a waste of time. Any discussion of teacher training is, likewise, a waste of time. We can’t really know how to train our teachers until we know who they are teaching–and, for the most part, the teacher ability and understanding they have now is doing a better than average job of teaching our top kids, so it’s not high on the list of things we need to worry about.
Speak Your Mind Cancel replyName *Email *WebsitePlease leave these two fields as-is:Protected by Invisible Defender. Showed 403 to 58,396 bad guys.
The Book
Subscribe
(a) EdBlogsAnswer SheetBrainstormBridging DifferencesClass StruggleCollege PuzzleCommon CoreCommunity College SpotlightConcord ReviewCore KnowledgeCritical MassCurriculum MattersDaily RiffDana GoldsteinDiscriminationsDropout NationEarly Ed WatchEarly StoriesEd BeatEd ReformerEdspressoEducation GadflyEducation NextEducation OptimistsEducation Policy BlogEduFlackEdutopia BlogEduwonkEdWizeEIA InterceptsFIRE’s TorchFlypaperFutures of School ReformGotham SchoolsHechingerEdHighered IntelligenceHome EducationInside School ResearchJay P. GreeneKitchen Table MathLarry CubanMinding the CampusNAS BlogNational JournalOut in Left FieldPolitics K-12Pretty Darn QuickQuick and the EdredefinEdRick Hess Straight UpRock the SchoolhouseSchool Law and ReformShanker BlogSherman DornStuart BuckTeacher BeatThe Educated ReporterThis Week in EducationTOP-EdTurnaround ChallengeUniversity DiariesWhitney TilsonWhy Boys Fail(b) TeacherBlogsA Teacher’s EducationA Teacher’s ViewAssorted StuffBiology and BlueberriesCoach BrownCoach G's Teaching TipsCurmudgeonDaily GrindDeTocqueville's DaughterDy/DanGently Hew StoneHistory is ElementaryHuffEnglishLightly SeasonedMathNotationsMildly MelancholyMiss BraveNot All Flowers and SausagesNYC EducatorOrganized ChaosPractical TheoryRight on the Left CoastShrewdness of ApesSiobhan CuriousStories from SchoolTeach for America BlogsTeacher in a Strange LandTeacher VoicesTeacher, I Don't Get ItTeacherLingoTeaching NowThe LineUrban Teacher's EducationWhat It's Like on the Inside(c) Blogroll11DAnn AlthouseBetsy’s PageBuzzMachineHit & RunI Speak of DreamsInkwellInstapunditIowahawkJames Lileks’ BleatJim MillerJust One MinuteKausfilesMegan McArdleRoger SimonThe CornerThe PlankTim BlairVirginia PostrelVolokh Conspiracy(d) News/InfoBest of the WebCalifornia WatchCity JournalCommentary MagazinePajamas MediaReasonSlateTCS DailyThe OnionWeekly Standard(e) CollegesCalifornia business schoolPennco TechLinksApidexinArtificial Christmas TreesAsbestos Lung CancerChicago CollegeChristmas DecorationsColleges in IllinoisColorado Nursing SchoolsEducatorFacebook EmoticonsMesotheliomaPhlebotomy TrainingScentOnline EducationAccredited Online CollegesBachelor Degrees OnlineBachelor of AccountingCNA Duties and ResponsibilitiesCollege OnlineDay TradingElementary & Secondary EducationEngineering Programs OntarioHealthcare Management DegreeIO PsychologyMassage Therapy ProgramsMedical Billing and CodingMedical Billing and Coding TrainingOnline College EducationOnline Courses AustraliaOnline Courses in AustraliaOnline Criminal Justice DegreesOnline MBAOnline Psychology DegreesOnline Trading EducationOnline UniversityPhlebotomy CertificationPhlebotomy TrainingPhlebotomy TrainingReal Online Degrees BlogUMATX-Ray TechnicianSiteMeter
Return to top of page
Copyright © 2011 · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in
0 comments:
Post a Comment