The Boston Globe has the article Are teachers really ready for the Common Core?
This article adds some information that is needed in this debate, but it is only a piece of what is needed.
In reading some recent articles and seeing some videos, I have started to gain an understanding of what the Common Core is trying to achieve in math. (See my previous post, Arkansas mom destroys Common Core in four powerful minutes) That understanding alone does not answer the question about how much research has gone into figuring out if the new teaching methods work. As I keep reading, I find that research has been done, but I haven’t yet read enough details on what research was done and how it was carried out to know if I think the research was sufficient.
Questions I would like answered include the following: Have the new methods been tested on a broad range of students to see if the new method works for all, for most, for many, or just a few? Has the research included a study of how to train teachers to teach the new method? Again all, most, many, or none. Has the research analyzed the impact of parents “helping” their children with homework for all kinds of parents. Different kinds of parents might include the highly talented mathematicians who learned by different methods, to the average parent, to the parent with not enough time, to the uneducated parent. Has the research studied the best methods to roll-out the new program – all at once, a little at a time, school by school, city by city, state by state, or the whole country all at once.
Changing the education system of an entire country requires much more thought than changing how one teacher teaches a course. Has the thought been done at the top, through the middle, and down to the bottom of the implementation pyramid?
I was intrigued by the following example question.
A right circular cone is shown in the figure. Point A is the vertex of the cone and point B lies on the circumference of the base of the cone.
The cone has a height of 24 units and a diameter of 20 units. What is the distance from point A to point B?
____ units
It took me a few seconds to see that this was not as complicated a question as I first thought. It took me a few more seconds to figure out how to do calculate the answer in my head without any difficult arithmetic.
To check your answer with the right one, see the answer on the PARCC web site.
Perhaps this isn’t as controversial a question as the examples in my previous post.