Some Nuggets from my Reader

Summer has not been a great time to absorb the material being fed to my Google Reader account. In fact, I have been practicing marking items read that aren't and unsubscribing from feeds.

I found four recent things quite interesting though.

1. Tim Hawes' post about Willingham's contention that learning styles don't exist. Have a look at the video posted at Tim's site and some of the references quoted in my comment. I will look forward to reading your musings on Tim's post.

2. Geoff Day, another commun-it blogger, pointed me to an interesting study about how counting is not dependent on having language to name numbers. It made me think of the EQAO tests.

3. At the recent GAINS-CAMPPP, I subscribed to a news feed about Keith Devlin, who commented on my recent post. There I found a long and interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle about what algebra should be taught in schools. It also has some interesting quotes. My favorite was:

"Algebra ... the intensive study of the last three letters of the alphabet."

4. A post by Gary Stager suggesting ways to better the teaching of geometry (including use Sketchpad, use Logo (but not Scratch)).

Math Wars, The Pre-eminence of Algebra and the Presidential Math Panel

The blogosphere has been abuzz with opinions about the Presidential Math Panel report. Five good ones are found at the Pulse blog. Gary Stager's opinion includes the following:

Not only is the progression from arithmetic manipulation of fractions to Algebra tenuous, but neither of the assumptions underlying the value of teaching fractions or Algebra are ever questioned. The President’s Math Panel, like most of the math education community maintains a Kabbalah-like belief in an antiquated scope and sequence. Such curricular superstition fuels a multigenerational feud in which educators fight over who has the best trick for forcing kids to learn something useless, irrelevant or unpleasant.

and

The Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel
does not dispute that teachers spend lots of time teaching fractions. The report merely urges that teachers do even more of the same while hoping for a different result. A definition of insanity comes to mind.

I wonder if Math teachers are so unwilling to question the supremacy of algebra because they are worried that they will lose market share in the high school curriculum and lose sections at summer school.