>TERC – WHEN IT FAILS, IT’S BECA– USE OF THE TEACHERS, not our Mishugona* curriculum
An excerpt from “Changing the Elementary Mathematics Curriculum: Obstacles and Challenges”, Susan Jo Russell
TERC , 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140
Curriculum as teacher development
We see our curriculum as a vehicle for teacher development. The actual curriculum is not what we envision and write down, but what happens between students and teachers in the moment of teaching and learning. So while part of our responsibility is to provide the material, the actual investigations, in which students will participate-and this in itself is no easy matter-the other, equally critical part of our responsibility is to open up that material to teachers, to invite them in both to the mathematics and to children’s mathematical thinking.
The audience, therefore, for our materials, is teachers, not students. Our units are written to the teachers with many digressions about mathematics and about children’s learning of mathematics. The responsibility is absolutely on the teachers to make this material work. If they fail, the material fails. On the other hand, by not making teachers partners in the past, we have made a grievous error. By not inviting teachers in to mathematics, by attempting to make materials “teacher proof” because educators or mathematicians believed that classroom teachers were not smart enough about mathematics to teach it, not only have we denied the students a good mathematical education, but we have denied generations of elementary teachers-largely women-access to mathematics.
It could be me, but if I were a teacher, I’d be insulted.
*”Mishugona” is Yiddish for crazy, the fly is trying to appeal to a more ethnic audience
>https://investigations.terc.edu/relevant/DesignPrinciplesShorter.cfm
2. What’s the Math?: Explicitness and Coherence
As Investigations has been implemented and we supported professional development and implementation in a variety of ways, we were often surprised to find that what was clear to us about the mathematical focus of a unit, a session, or an activity, and about the connection and sequence of the sessions and activities, was not always so clear to teachers.
Sometimes this happened because the meanings of words were not shared. For example, a teacher might say, “but there’s not enough work on place value,” but after a conversation, it might become clear that what this teacher meant by “place value” was “expanded notation,” rather than a deeper understanding of the base ten system.
At other times, a teacher might say, “I didn’t understand the point of this activity, so I skipped it,” when we considered the activity crucial.
Or a discussion in the curriculum, as implemented, might become a listing of student ideas with little focus or direction.
Although “mathematical emphases” are listed at the beginning of every class session, the words used in these emphases did not always help teachers understand the session’s focus.
>If I were a teacher, I would be insulted also. I am against TERC, but the last thing I want to do is blame the teachers. We have a lot of hard working, excellent teachers in Ridgewood and they are not to blame for TERC.
>Geez, these TERC guys are propaganda geniuses. If their “material” doesn’t work, blame the teachers.
>If teachers don’t get, parents don’t get it, is it any wonder that our children don’t get it.
I guess the only people who understand TERC, besides the crew that invented it, is our BOE.
>I am a teacher and I’m not insulted. I can understand what the writer is saying about the challenges of communicating new materials and new ways of teaching to teachers who are used to something very different. I’m not a TERC supporter, but rather a “lots of different approaches” supporter. Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
>Thanks, 8:30 AM. I, a former high school teacher, get it, too, about using multiple approaches, and am glad that you follow that philosophy instead of a “one size fits all approach.” However, that said, these writers are still putting the sole responsibility on the teacher for the success or failure of the materials. Which isn’t fair.
>Who is this “we” who denied women access to math? It couldn’t be other woman, therefore, I can only surmise, it must be “those men”. It’s the uberfemale agenda folks. They speak only for those entrenched in academia.
>you can use multiple approaches – just make sure the first one you try is called DIRECT INSTRUCTION — you might find it works the best (like most research has discovered)