Increasing Public Understanding of Effective Math Teaching.

Jo Boaler, Marie Curie ProfessorThe University of Sussex.

Today

Part 1: Setting the Scene Part 2: Learning About Public

Views of Mathematics Teaching Questions / Discussion

Math…

Is the subject with the biggest gap between what we know works from research and what happens in most classrooms

National Math Panel Report

Response From the Math Education Community,Educational Researcher, next month

New ways of working

Making research findings more accessible

&

More broadly available to general public

My journey ..

Writing a Book for the public

My journey

Writing a Book for the public Contacting Politicians

“this makes perfect sense”

My journey

Writing a Book for the public Contacting Politicians

“this makes perfect sense” Contacting the Press

My journey

Writing a Book for the public Contacting Politicians

“this makes perfect sense” Contacting the Press Writing Op-Ed articles

Recent Ed Week Article Where Has All The Knowledge

Gone? The Movement to Keep Americans at the Bottom of the Class in Math.

Oct 8th, 2008

My journey

Writing a Book for the public Contacting Politicians

“this makes perfect sense” Contacting the Press Writing Op-Ed articles

Different Knowledge Groups Mathematics Education

Professionals (us)

Mathematics Education Professionals (us) Problem solve – using & applying

methods

Talk about math, discussing methods

Use own ideas, not only repeat methods

Make connections between methods

What is the problem?

Mathematics in the World

Mathematics used by Mathematicians

At Railside school

Many more students were successful because there were many more ways to be successful.

Mathematics as a subject: IN or

OUT

AOL News Poll

Most Hated Subject – twice as many voted for math as any other subject

Most Liked Subject.

Reflects the “in” or “out” nature of school math

Different Knowledge Groups Mathematics Education

Professionals

Groups who campaign to preserve the exclusive, in-out, narrow version of math

Mathematics Education Groups

A book

Mainstream Publisher (Viking & Penguin)

How it came about.

Other academics…

No idea Misled Very important

20+ radio interviews

Mainly 10-15 minutes Conversations with djs sharing

their thoughts, interests, concerns

30 mins NPR “The Morning Show” & 1 hour “The Exchange” New Hampshire Public Radio (members of public called in)

The radio stations

WAFE

Blowing apart the idea that math success is a sign of general intelligence

Not engaging in narrow math is perfectly reasonable

How did they react?

Surprise and Relief More than half shared Tales of

TraumaEg Kitty Dunn, “weekend perspective”

Vast majority disliked math, 1 or 2 liked it – all saw the need for change.

What they cared about: Need for help with life (finances

etc) Need for engagement “there is

nothing worse than having to memorize a bunch of theorems”

Music metaphor (“the Morning Show” NPR)

Keith Devlin Mathematical notation no more is

mathematics than musical notation is music. A page of sheet music represents a piece of music, but the notation and the music are not the same; the music itself happens when the notes on the page are sung or performed on a musical instrument. It is in its performance that the music comes alive” (The Math Gene, 2000, p9)

Continuing the music metaphor… Mathematics is a performance, a living act, a

way of interpreting the world. Imagine music lessons in which students worked through hundreds of hours of sheet music, adjusting the notes on the page, receiving checks and crosses from the teachers, but never playing the music. Students would not continue with the subject because they would never experience what music is. Yet this is the situation that continues, seemingly unabated in mathematics classes. (What’s Math Got To Do With It’ p29)

What they cared about: Need for help with life Need for engagement “there is

nothing worse than having to memorize a bunch of theorems” (various) – music metaphor

Need for Problem solving (Morning Show)

Need for Reasoning (& groupwork) (KCMN)

2 issues

The Purity Jim Parisi

Qu: who likes math for its purity?

A: YesB: No

2 issues

The Purity

The Tests

In Conclusion .. Anti-reformers have worked actively,

effectively, and unethically to oppose changes to math teaching, but how wide is their influence?

They have created a fiction around their own importance

I got the overwhelming sense that no-one had made these points to these people, but when they heard them they completely understood the issues

As powerful as traditional groups have been, they do not well represent the public

We need to question how they have managed to have such influence

We need to be outraged by what they have done and continue to do

It is our responsibility, as those who know about children’s learning, to educate the public and politicians

Mathematics Education Groups