Posted on

Vlog Ep #04: Math-Anxious Parents Produce Anxious Kids Who Know Less Math (research report)

Do you wonder about the wisdom of sending math homework home? Have you ever had a sneaky suspicion that parents may actually not be helping their kids learn math?

Well, now there’s evidence that supports your caution.

Research: Do Parents Help, or Hinder Their Kids’ Math Learning?

If you have any interest in helping kids with their math learning, I urge you to watch the video, then go and read this article:

Briefly, the findings of this year-long research using children in grades 1 and 2 and their parents were:

  • Parents who reported math anxiety themselves, and who helped their children with math homework resulted in children who:
    • were more anxious about  math themselves
    • learned less math over the year
  • Reading scores were not affected
  • Parents who did not help with math homework had no significant effect

This is a hugely important set of findings. I believe all K-6 math teachers should address the issues here, for the sake of their students’ learning.

Suggestions for Every K-6 Math Teacher:

  • Don’t set math homework that is likely to cause stress or anxiety in parents who themselves are not confident in math
  • Talk to parents about the messages they send (often unwittingly) to their children about math and math learning
  • Make suggestions to parents about low-stress ways to help their kids with math
  • Point out everyday activities that parents could use as springboards for incidental math conversations:
    • Shopping
    • Cooking
    • Budgeting
    • Deciding what to buy
    • Keeping track of sports scores, race times, etc.
    • Playing board games and dice games
  • Urge parents to let their children know that they believe in their children’s future success in math and to talk positively about how useful math is to all adults

► SUBSCRIBE to Professor Pete’s Classroom on YouTube to learn more expert tips on teaching K-6 math for understanding

Do you find this blog useful? Don’t miss another episode: Click below to register for our email notification list:

Do you find this blog useful? Don’t miss another episode: Click below to register for our email notification list:

 

Register Now!

Posted on

The Most Challenging K-6 Math Topic (Survey Results)

Teachers recently told us, of all the K-6 math topics in the curriculum, which one they would most like help with.
Care to guess which topic came to the top of the list?

Most Challenging K-6 Math Topic

The “winner”: Place value. Close behind? Operations, followed by Number facts.

Since these three broad topics form the bulk of the mathematics curriculum, especially if you include fractions, perhaps this isn’t a big surprise. But another perspective is that, while these three form the backbone of the math curriculum, they are possibly the most abstract and the most difficult for children to understand.

Most Requested Resources

The followup question we asked was “If support for the above K-6 math topic were available, which of the following components would you like included?” The following possible components were listed:

  • Teacher information about recommendations for teaching the topic
  • Pretest to assess students’ learning prior to starting the topic
  • Video to set the scene / prompt discussion / show math in real life contexts
  • Video for teacher on recommended teaching
  • Instructional video for students
  • Hands-on learning activities
  • Worksheets
  • Differentiation activities for various levels of ability
  • Homework sheets
  • Parents information to explain homework
  • Posttest to assess students’ learning after learning the topic

The results? The top request, made by 85% of respondents, was “Hands-on learning activities”, followed by “Differentiation activities for various levels of ability”, and then “Video to set the scene / prompt discussion / show math in real life contexts“.

I am encouraged to see that teachers we have contacted want their students to have experiences with hands-on activities to help them learn math. As we all know, math is a highly abstract discipline, and traditionally it was taught around the symbols, which themselves are linked abstractly to the numbers which they represent. So to provide children with physical, hands-on ways to represent and play around with numbers is the way to help them to understand the subject, in my view.

What Next?

We are now starting development of a new package of resources to support teachers in their teaching of K-6 math. We will start with a small beta product, and put it out to a small group of our best supporters. All being well, this will then become available to others, via this website.

If you would like to be notified of when the package is publicly available, click the box below:

 

Join Notification List!

 

► SUBSCRIBE to Professor Pete’s Classroom on YouTube to learn more expert tips on teaching K-6 math for understanding

Vlog Email List

Do you find this blog useful? Don’t miss another episode: Click below to register for our email notification list:

 

Register Now!

Posted on

Teach Times Tables Without Apologies

Teach times tables to children in grades K-6: this is arguably one of the most important jobs a K-6 teacher has.

Why Teach Times Tables? Surely Calculators Make Memorization Redundant?

This sounds a little plausible, but I encourage you to stop and imagine this scenario: first, you have to imagine that you’re a child, around 10 years old. You haven’t had the experiences that your future adult self will have. You’ve been told by teachers that you don’t have to learn math facts by heart. You have a calculator in your desk, and you are encouraged to use it.

Now, picture this: you are working out the perimeter of a 6 by 8 rectangle using the formula “P = 2x(L + W)”.

Imagine This: You are a Child Whose Teachers Did Not Teach Times Tables

You remember you should add the length and width first, but you don’t know what six plus eight equals, since you never learned the addition facts by heart either. You look around in your desk and find the calculator, switch it on, look at the question again, press “8”, “+”, “6”, “=” and see “14” in the display. “What does that mean?” you think. Oh yes, that’s what “L + W” equals. Somehow you figure out the next step is to multiply 2 by the number you just found. You pick up the calculator, press “2”, “x”, then ask “What do I times this by?”.

You have forgotten the answer and you didn’t write it down, so you start again: “8”, “+”, “6”, “=”. This time you take note of the answer, “14”. You look back at the formula again, and press “2”, “x”, recall the previous answer again, “1”, “4”, “=”, and see the display shows “28”. You quickly write “28” in the space for the answer and move on to the next question. Oh look, it’s another perimeter question – it will be quicker this time, because you know the sequence of steps you have to take.

This is what happens if no-one takes the time to teach times tables. Notice that not only does this imaginary child take much longer to complete this simple question than it would have been if tables were memorized, the child is repeatedly interrupted in working through the question to carry out mechanical actions, mostly the pressing of calculator buttons, with little or no thought of why he or she is carrying out the process in the first place.

I promise you this: from today onward, I will not apologize for expecting students to memorize the times tables.

I’ve had enough. Students who don’t know the multiplication facts by heart will not achieve much success, if any, in their future math studies. So why don’t we do more to get our students to memorize facts?

Teach Times Tables: A True But Sad Story

In the video: The experience I had recently watching Year 5 kids trying to do a multiplication test without knowing the times tables illustrated this perfectly for me.

Students simply had no idea of the times tables, and so most of them resorted to drawing arrays of dots and then counting the dots from 1. Of course, this was much too slow, and in addition students frequently made mistakes.

► SUBSCRIBE to Professor Pete’s Classroom on YouTube to learn more expert tips on teaching K-6 math for understanding

Do you find this blog useful? Don’t miss another episode: Click below to register for our email notification list:

 

Register Now!

Posted on

Math is Important, REALLY Important

Who knew? Math is important. Like, really, really important.

We shouldn’t even need to say this, surely? Our kids need to grow up being good at math.

Watch the video:

 

Western Nations Spend More on Math, and Get Lower Results

And yet, despite most ordinary folks agreeing that math is a vital part of kids’ schooling, in western democratic nations we seem to be spending less time on math teaching, and getting lower results.

If you’re a teacher I’m confident that you believe in the value of a good mathematical education. But at the same time, you’re far from being alone if you find students seem to be less engaged and less proficient at math as time goes on.

Do you need ammunition to make math excellence a priority for your students?

Think on this: in 2016, terrorists are as likely to carry a laptop as a bomb. And they are probably in a basement somewhere, not risking being found out in the open.
Want to try that line “We don’t really need to be all that good at math, now we all have smartphones” again? I thought not.

Math is Important: We Should Spend More Time on Math in School, Not Less

Lastly, it distresses me to hear people say that modern technology has taken the place of people good at math, and that we can cut back on hours spent in school learning math, to make room for more trendy subjects such as coding and technology. I believe that educators as a group should spread the message that math is important; and if anything, it’s more important than it was in the past, given the spread of technology into nearly every part of our lives.

► SUBSCRIBE to Professor Pete’s Classroom on YouTube to learn more expert tips on teaching K-6 math for understanding

Do you find this blog useful? Don’t miss another episode: Click below to register for our email notification list:

 

Register Now!