Can you decipher this first grader’s math assignment? BoingBoing’s Mark Frauenfelder wants a second opinion. [%comments]
Make 10? Make 11? Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
TAGS: Mathematics
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seems sensible to me – assuming it was explained to them in class first. you have to make 10 and then see what else you’ve got. that’s how you do addition isn’t it?
Ahh, Investigations… how do I love thee – let me count the ways… let me try to remember a “counting strategy”…
There were several good explanations over there. My wife is a 3rd grade teacher so I have some background knowledge. But the summary as I understand it is that they students are being taught number sense. The teachers want them to understand both the base ten system and place value as well as ways to rearrange numbers to make them easier to add together. There some pretty clear research that shows this works well when teachers teach it properly.
haha.
Just wait till they teach subtraction without borrowing and carrying over but adding and carrying to. And then subtraction with a list of eight numbers in a column.
Do you people really not get this? This is how i used to beat the boys in arithmetic races at the board in fifth grade.
(1970 or so). When they taught it to my kids in 1990 or so), i was a little confused at first because i didn’t understand why they were teaching steps that you do in your head automatically.
think more numbers, think columns. think likely hood for error.
step by step.
Now we know why most Americans are economically illiterate, or innumerate.
The graduate degree in Education is the worst thing that ever happened to American education. (Hmmm….sounds like a topic begging for a chapter in HyperFreakonomics or MegaFreakonomics, whichever comes next.)
Usually if I’m given a set of instructions I manage to find an interpretation of those instructions which — being the wrong interpretation — causes some kind of chaos. But not with that example. It’s pretty clear they are trying to teach children how to do addition with carrying.
I figured it out, but only because
(1) I took a college course in symbolic logic and I know that an arrow symbol translates roughly into English as “if…then…”, and
(2) I assume the pedagogical purpose of the exercise is to condition children to think in base-10.
Thus they are expected to convert whatever two-digit sum they reach on the left (be it 11, 12, etc.) into an equation expressed as “10 + x.” The drawings on the right should be completed to reflect the “10 + x” version of the equation.
I couldn’t figure it out at first just by looking at it, but after reading one of the explanations over at the other site it made sense.
I would presume this was all explained in detail to the class during the day. Really all that’s missing is a good set of written instructions or an example for when the kid gets home, forgets how to do it, and asks mom and dad for help.