Math Instruction Educators and politici

Educators and politicians have long been concerned about the state of math instruction in American schools, and instruction at the elementary level is clearly a vital element given that this is where students begin their math instruction. If the instruction does not go well, they will have trouble catching up later, and there is considerable evidence that elementary students are not doing well. This raises questions about the efficacy of teaching methods for math at this level.

This is not a new issue, and Congress tried to address it in 1965 by passing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, including a backtobasics message intended to improve achievement in math and other subjects. In 1988, a study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of Princeton, New Jersey of the results showed that the program was not working. Among the findings at that time were the following:

M More than a fourth of 13yearold middle schoolers could not handle elementaryschool arithmetic.

M Nearly onethird of eleventhgraders said they generally did not understand what the math teacher was talking about.

M Only 6 percent of 17yearolds could handle algebra or multistep math problems.

M Scores for blacks and Hispanics showed modest gains but still lagged 7 percent to 11 percent below those for whites (Bowen, 1988).

More recent data shows that math and science teaching still fails to reach the students at the elementary

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, reflection, and analysis, meaning what works, how it works, and why it works. Best practice does not mean starting from scratch but instead is a way of adapting to circumstances by learning the best way to improve a process and adapt it to new circumstances. The process is manifested in three ways: M exchange of experience, including sharing between individual experts M pilot testing, operations research, and other projects and programs M documentation To identify best practice providing useful lessons learned means making judgments, and there are two approaches that may be used to reach such judgments, each reflecting a different level of analysis. The first is based on simple description of the practice's accomplishments, and best practice can thus be anything that works, in full or in part, and that can be useful in providing lessons learned. The second is to carry out a thorough analysis using specific, established criteria that look at strengths and weaknesses as well as successes and failures. The best practice process, then, helps to identify and describe the lessons learned and the keys to success of any program or policy. Best practice learning offers a curriculum with certain characteristics involvin

Category: Psychology - M