Thursday, February 18, 2016
Monday, April 23, 2012
Vancouver Sun Article on Poorly written Math Text Books
Significant errors in public school math textbooks may be negatively affecting students’ abilities to understand the subject, says a senior lecturer in mathematics at Simon Fraser University.
Malgorzata Dubiel spent the last year studying the textbooks and determined “errors in terminology, definitions and presentation of mathematical concepts” may be contributing to students’ difficulties in understanding concepts.
She found many such errors in Math Makes Sense, the most popular kindergarten-to-Grade 9 math textbook series in B.C.
“I don’t want to say that they are truly bad, because they are based on sound methodology and so on, but they were written just by teachers and no mathematician was ever consulted either in reviewing them or writing,” Dubiel said.
“There are some issues which can make learning more difficult for students and for teachers. There are things that are, mathematically, totally incorrect.”
As an example, Dubiel cited a Grade 7 math textbook that defined the term “average” as “the number that represents all numbers in a set,” which may or may not be equal to a mean.
“In statistics, those words are used interchangeably, and average means exactly the same as the mean, but we’re telling students that it isn’t,” she said.
Elsewhere, the textbook asks whether it is possible to draw a circle with a circumference of exactly 33 cm.
“Common sense tells you can take a string with the length of 33 cm, make a circle of it, and this is your circle,” she said. Or, one can use a mathematical formula to calculate the radius and draw the circle from that, rounding decimals.
The textbook, however, states this is impossible: “[Pi] never terminates or repeats. So, the circumference will never be a whole number.”
She has contacted both the publisher of the textbooks and the Ministry of Education to little effect to date.
In response to a detailed report on Dubiel’s findings, the ministry told Dubiel in a letter the public school system is in the early stages of transformation and her findings would be shared with ministry staff working with document references.
The Ministry of Education did not return a call for comment from The Sun by deadline.
awoo@vancouversun.comtwitter.com/AndreaWoo
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Math+textbook+contains+errors+lecturer+says/6451024/story.html#ixzz1stlLR6V5
Malgorzata Dubiel spent the last year studying the textbooks and determined “errors in terminology, definitions and presentation of mathematical concepts” may be contributing to students’ difficulties in understanding concepts.
She found many such errors in Math Makes Sense, the most popular kindergarten-to-Grade 9 math textbook series in B.C.
“I don’t want to say that they are truly bad, because they are based on sound methodology and so on, but they were written just by teachers and no mathematician was ever consulted either in reviewing them or writing,” Dubiel said.
“There are some issues which can make learning more difficult for students and for teachers. There are things that are, mathematically, totally incorrect.”
As an example, Dubiel cited a Grade 7 math textbook that defined the term “average” as “the number that represents all numbers in a set,” which may or may not be equal to a mean.
“In statistics, those words are used interchangeably, and average means exactly the same as the mean, but we’re telling students that it isn’t,” she said.
Elsewhere, the textbook asks whether it is possible to draw a circle with a circumference of exactly 33 cm.
“Common sense tells you can take a string with the length of 33 cm, make a circle of it, and this is your circle,” she said. Or, one can use a mathematical formula to calculate the radius and draw the circle from that, rounding decimals.
The textbook, however, states this is impossible: “[Pi] never terminates or repeats. So, the circumference will never be a whole number.”
She has contacted both the publisher of the textbooks and the Ministry of Education to little effect to date.
In response to a detailed report on Dubiel’s findings, the ministry told Dubiel in a letter the public school system is in the early stages of transformation and her findings would be shared with ministry staff working with document references.
The Ministry of Education did not return a call for comment from The Sun by deadline.
awoo@vancouversun.comtwitter.com/AndreaWoo
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Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Math+textbook+contains+errors+lecturer+says/6451024/story.html#ixzz1stlLR6V5
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
www.jumpmath.org
Visit this website to get free teacher manuals and materials for teaching mathematics.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sickkids Hospital
If you have not been on their website I would suggest you pay it a visit. Their is an interesting article at AboutKidsHealth: News: Mathematics: does sex matter?
http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/News/Mathematics-does-sex-matter.aspx?articleID=12880&categoryID=news-type
http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/News/Mathematics-does-sex-matter.aspx?articleID=12880&categoryID=news-type
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