Category: Bergen County

>The Ridgewood Republican Club meeting…
Monday, March 31, 2008 at 7 PM in the East Room of the United Methodist Church, located at 100 Dayton Street across from Van Neste Park.

Tonight from 7:15 PM to 7:45 PM
Two speakers will explain and answer questions on the topic, “The Ridgewood Schools Math Controversy: Basis and Solutions”. The invited speakers are Greg Lois and Sarah-Kate Maskin, who are currently candidates for the Ridgewood Board of Education. (Election Day is April 15).

The League of Women Voters sponsors School Board Candidates debate…
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 7:30 PM in the 3rd floor of the Education Center, located at 49 Cottage Place.

All four candidates will be answering 3 questions posed by the LWV’s moderator and questions will be taken from the audience.

Take advantage of these opportunities to attend one or both of these open to the public events and hear what the candidates have to say.

>The National Math Panel has scrutinized only the most rigorous studies to draw its conclusions. Not surprisingly, some of the panel’s findings cast doubt on techniques recently in use–even in the best school districts.

Below are some interesting points extracted directly from the panel’s final report. Administrators and teachers should take note of these, and consider them in light of current practices and future professional development. Schools of Education should also take a hard look.

The first list consists of direct quotes from the panel. The second list is a summary of this blogger’s views and opinions, mapped to the first list. The final list highlights a few points of interest.

National Math Panel statements about Instructional Practices
(these are direct quotes)
1.Claims based on Piaget’s highly influential theory, and related theories of “developmental appropriateness” that children of particular ages cannot learn certain content because they are “too young,” “not in the appropriate stage,” or “not ready” have consistently been shown to be wrong. Nor are claims justified that children cannot learn particular ideas because their brains are insufficiently developed, even if they possess the prerequisite knowledge for learning the ideas.

2.The sociocultural perspective of Vygotsky has also been influential in education. It characterizes learning as a social induction process through which learners become increasingly independent through the tutelage of more knowledgeable peers and adults. However, its utility in mathematics classrooms and mathematics curricula remains to be scientifically tested.

3.The Panel recommends the scaling-up and experimental evaluation of support-focused interventions that have been shown to improve the mathematics outcomes of African-American and Hispanic students. [However,] average gender differences are small or nonexistent, and our society’s focus on them has diverted attention from the essential task of raising the scores of both boys and girls.

4.All-encompassing recommendations that instruction should be entirely “student centered” or “teacher directed” are not supported by research. If such recommendations exist, they should be rescinded. If they are being considered, they should be avoided. High-quality research does not support the exclusive use of either approach.

5.The Panel’s review of the literature addressed the question of whether using “real-world” contexts to introduce and teach mathematical topics and procedures is preferable to using more typical instructional approaches. For certain populations (upper elementary and middle grade students, and remedial ninth-graders) and for specific domains of mathematics (fraction computation, basic equation solving, and function representation), instruction that features the use of “real-world” contexts has a positive impact on certain types of problem solving. However, these results are not sufficient as a basis for widespread policy recommendations. Additional research is needed to explore the use of “real-world” problems in other mathematical domains, at other grade levels, and with varied definitions of “real-world” problems.

6.The Panel’s survey of the nation’s algebra teachers indicated that the use of calculators in prior grades was one of their concerns (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). The Panel cautions that to the degree that calculators impede the development of automaticity, fluency in computation will be adversely affected. The Panel recommends that high-quality research on particular uses of calculators be pursued, including both their short- and long-term effects on computation, problem solving, and conceptual understanding.

7.Research has been conducted on a variety of cooperative learning approaches. One such approach, Team Assisted Individualization (TAI), has been shown to improve students’ computation skills. This highly structured instructional approach involves heterogeneous groups of students helping each other, individualized problems based on student performance on a diagnostic test, specific teacher guidance, and rewards based on both group and individual performance. Effects of TAI on conceptual understanding and problem solving were not significant. There is suggestive evidence that peer tutoring improves computation skills in the elementary grades. However, additional research is needed.

8.Use of formative assessments in mathematics can lead to increased precision in how instructional time is used in class and can assist teachers in identifying specific instructional needs. Formative measures provide guidance as to the specific topics needed for assistance. Results [of studies] suggest that use of formative assessments benefited students at all ability levels. More studies are needed. Formative assessment should be an integral component of instructional practice in mathematics.

Summary:

1.Piaget’s theories are not reliable for mathematics education. Interestingly, the constructivist approach to teaching is based on Piaget’s theories. This finding of the panel casts grave doubt on the validity of a constructivist model for the teaching of mathematics.

2.The use of peer groups for the purpose of students teaching other students has never been tested, and therefore should be used sparingly and with caution.

3.Teaching methods specifically intended to reach girls should be dropped.

4.”Discovery” has always been a useful teaching approach and continues to be. The “discovery” approach can once again take its rightful place as one of many teaching techniques, rather than the dominant or only one, as it has in constructivist schools and classrooms.

5.The broad policy of using real-world problems to introduce and teach mathematical concepts has not been sufficiently tested, and should be restricted to upper grades, and then only to certain domains of mathematics.

6.The use of calculators before ninth grade has not only not been tested, the panel cautions that their use before grade nine interferes with the development of automaticity and fluency. Therefore, their use should be dropped until studies can be done.

7.Cooperative learning helps develop computation skills but not necessarily conceptual understanding or problem solving. Until further testing is done, cooperative learning should be limited to use for developing computation skills.

8.The increasing use of “formative assessment,” also known as “authentic assessment” (assessment which is ongoing as opposed to traditional tests)is a good idea, and should continue.

A Few Points of Interest:

1.It is noteworthy that while the panel was quite negative about early use of calculators, they were much more positive about the use of computer-assisted instruction. So much for educators lauding use of all technology. They need to think a little more critically about which technology.

2.The practice of “formative assessment,” a method used increasingly in some schools and often referred to as “authentic assessment,” while understandably questioned by parents, has been tested and shows good results in the teaching of mathematics.

3.Teachers and administrators should pursue practices that have been well-tested, and must exercise restraint with regard to practices that are not sufficiently tested. Parents, taxpayers, administrators, and teachers need to place their trust in science and an eclectic approach, rather than any one “ism.”

4.With regard to the evidence that cooperative learning can help develop computation skills, so can computer assistance. Either way, the student is prompted to focus on drill, and the teacher is freed up to work with other students. However, gifted literature is rife with anecdotes of negative impact on the student who is leaned on too much. It is wise to exercise caution, therefore, until studies of gifted students can be scrutinized more closely to determine the extent of negative impact.

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>A report on math education fuels the debate about the Singapore model. What is it–and would it work here?
Peg Tyre
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 4:33 PM ET Mar 14, 2008

This week, after two years of deliberation, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel released their report aimed at improving math education in this country. And you could almost hear the sound of textbooks–that heavy one in your kid’s backpack, and a stack of high-stakes math tests, the kind your kid take every year–landing in the garbage can with a thud.

The advisory panel, made up of 24 educators and mathematicians, is all for textbooks and testing. In fact, the report specifically endorses regular math assessment. But after months of hearings, the panel was unequivocal that we need to change the way math is being taught–and the way we test it. Right now, it’s simply too broad, too unfocused, repetitious and, in the end, treated too superficially. Instead, the report recommends, “the mathematics curriculum in Grades PreK-8 should be streamlined and should emphasize a well-defined set of the most critical topics in the grades.” Teachers should focus on skills like computing with whole numbers, fractions, geometry and measurement. Most importantly, those skills should be taught in a coherent sequence so that by late middle school, more students have a proper foundation from which to unravel the elegant puzzles of algebra. “Students who complete Algebra II are twice as likely to graduate from college compared to students with less mathematical preparation,” the report says.

Which means that a lot of states are going to have to start scrambling. In most places, math standards, which are determined by the state and sometimes the district, are a hodgepodge of as many as a hundred different topics related to math: word problems, computation exercises, probability games. And teachers are required to cover them all in a single year. Textbooks, which are written to follow state standards, are also overlong and often incoherent. Take that math book out of your kid’s backpack and look at it. It’s likely to be a massive tome that includes chapter after chapter with photographs, puzzles, data charts, “Did You Know” factoids and even a few games. And the yearly assessments are often just as incoherent.

Instead, states need to figure out what’s crucial, when to teach it, and make sure teachers follow the formula. “The conversation needs to be, at every grade level, ‘What’s important here?’ ” says Francis Skip Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Math, which came up with their own pared-down guidelines for math instruction in 2006, which strongly influenced the math panel’s recommendations.

The findings of the panel come when international assessments show U.S. students rapidly falling behind other developing countries. A 2007 assessment found that 15-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 25th out of 30 developed nations in computation, problem solving and math literacy. The panel was convened in 2006 by President Bush to address concerns about the lack of homegrown mathematicians, engineers and scientists.

The panel’s report tries to defuse factional tension between proponents of new math, fuzzy math, back-to-basics math and the like. The report says teacher-directed approaches (the skills-and-drills method) or student-centered approaches (based on individual or group exploration of math concepts) each have a place.

At the same time, the report will provide momentum to the small but increasingly influential group of math researchers and educators who see the curriculum used in Singapore, often called Singapore Math, as the gold standard. Singapore math is very lean, says Charles Patton, a software developer at SRI International and math-education researcher who is working with Singapore’s National Institute of Education. The Singapore curriculum flows coherently from one subject to another, culminating in algebra. “If you flip through the pages of an American math textbook and a Singapore math textbook, you begin to understand just how much thought and effort went into sequencing and wording. It is a very powerful and well-engineered tool,” he says.

Since 2006, when the NCTM published its guidelines, several states have begun looking at ways to simplify their math curriculum. But Patton cautions against schools simply grafting Singapore Math textbooks onto their already existing math program. Singapore’s teachers are trained by a single institution, which also provides the math curriculum, tests and textbooks. Teachers get about 100 hours of professional development to work on their instructional skills. “If you simply drop a Singapore math textbook into your math program,” says Patton, “it is bound to fail.”
URL: https://www.newsweek.com/id/123326

>A recently discovered document by the Concerned Residents of Ridgewood created by Valley’s Architect’s TRO Jung Brannen . It is part of a larger record that the architects are using to track the negotiations between Valley and the Village Professionals. Notice they use words like Compromise, Proposed and Agreed. All words that are normally associated with negotiating. They also name the Village Planner as holding-out for a ratio of 4.2 car spaces after Valley at first offered 3.9 and then later offered 4.0. This shows that Valley is constantly changing the “margins” of their proposal to make it conform to feedback from the Village Professionals.

Irrespective of what the Planning Board might say, Valley’s professionals believe they are negotiating with the Professionals from the Planning Board! For Valley this has the effect of being a backdoor deal, avoiding the more transparent public process. It is expected that Planning Board professionals will give their “option” on the Valley proposal on April 1st. Then it is up to the Planning Board and Village Council.

https://www.stopvalley.com/TheseareNegotiations.pdf

>Your community passion must be commended. Yes, it is fuzzy math…to adults. When taught in its entirety, students get it. So is this about us as adults and what we know or about student achievement?

Visit What Work Clearinghouse, www.w-w-c.org and justforkids.org. See what successful schools are doing to improve student achievement. EM is being used in quite a few places.

The big problem with EM is the sprial. It makes all of us uncomfortable because it is outside of what we know. We are uncomfortable because WE have to change our way of thinking that has served us well for decades. It goes to the very heart of what we know about school. So does using the Internet, IPODs, PDAs, or the fact that children are extremely disruptive at school and even at home. It is a difficult shift for teachers, parents, and the community.

But are they not worth making a change? Mathematics is not just arithmetic, even at the kindergarten level. In kindergarten, students visit concepts in all mathematical strands: numbers and operations, geometry, algebra, data analysis and statistics, and probability. That’s real mathematics that they learn.

No, they don’t know the facts like we would like them to know them. If you look at the standardized assessments, it doesn’t seem to be a priority either. But they have strategies for performing operations mentally and/or using tools that are amazing.

Before you condemn a program, learn about it. We were ready to give up on it, too. What we realized is that this program, this type of program is not going anywhere. NCLB has ensured us that not only will spiraling programs stay, there will be more. So we decided to accept and embrace it fully, then we would decide for ourselves. The results: we made 14% growth in mathematics scores!

The more we learned, using program and the Teacher Reference Book, the more we realized we did not understand at a deeper level. We memorized information when we were in school! We have a cohort of teachers from this school earning endorsements in Middle School Mathematics. Even the Pre-K teacher is going! The classes are not about EM but about mathematical concepts and the teaching and learning of mathematics. Our grade level meeting discussions are deeper and our conversations are always peppered with questions and things we have learned.

With parent workshops, our parents are starting to learn about mathematics, not just the program. We are honest about our struggles. It sometimes difficult to understand the point of some lessons. We use the EM website, email EM for clarity and talk about it. Most of the time, it is a topic we learned by memorizing years ago and now we need to understand it conceptually.

Ask a second grader with a teacher who is fully implementing EM what it means to multiply. The depth of their explanation and the ways they can prove it are amazing.

With FULL, UNSUPPLEMENTED, and SUPPORTED implementation you will get the results you are looking for from this program. Teachers will not do well with this program without intense professional development in their first two years of use.

Take the time and really find out what this type of program does for learning. Understand it has it draw backs, but so does NCLB. For all of the problems with it, the good outways the bad in working towards a quality education for all students.

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Despite spending $50K in late 2004 to construct a traffic safety speed table and cutout on South Pleasant Avenue near the Somerville School, Village Council members are still very unhappy with motor vehicle traffic flow and parking in the area.

On March 12, Ordinance 3108 was introduced by Council members. This ordinance, if approved, will ban all stopping and standing along the west side of South Pleasant Avenue between the hours of 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM.

So, regardless of the new traffic safety speed table and cutout, which were constructed to facilitate drop offs and pick ups on the west side of South Pleasant Avenue, Council members plan to ban this practice.

The Fly thinks this will create even more of a traffic mess in the area. What do you think?