“They’ll Need It for High School” (Part 1)

“They’ll need it for high school.” I hear that. A lot. From elementary and secondary alike. I’ve been doing the K-12 Numeracy Helping Teacher thing (think “Math Coach”) for four years now. Previously, I taught Math 8 to 12. Twelve years. In Part 1, I’m going to look at math topics, teaching practices, and other things related to readiness where this phrase is used.

The Chestnuts

Long division and times tables.

Teaching long division may be the greatest time suck in all of elementary mathematics education. When I was new to this gig, I asked an intermediate teacher “Why the em⋅PHA⋅sis on long division?” “TNIFHS,” she answered. Having taught HS, her answer surprised me. A HS student will spend 5 years × 90 classes/year = 450 classes, give or take, in math. She will not need long division in 449 of them. HS math teachers, back me up here — one lesson: polynomial division. That’s it. Her turn to be surprised. But don’t blame her: this idea gets a lot of play in the media.

Over lunch at a recent pro-d workshop — the tortelloni was lovely — a mathematics professor from a local university complained that her Calculus students struggled with long division. How could she know? What’s long division got to do with Calculus? Finger Pointing 101.

This is not a call for scrapping the standard long division algorithm in K-7. We need more history of mathematics in math class, not less. Wanna argue dividing multi-digit dividends by multi-digit divisors without using technology is an important life skill? Fine. But don’t point to HS math.

“How can I teach them when they haven’t even memorized their times tables?” is my Groundhog Day conversation. Granted, recall of the multiplication facts is important. And overblown; it’s no silver bullet.

Worse still is “they need to quickly recall the basic facts for high school.” How fast? Faster. But “faster equals smarter” is not a productive belief for learning mathematics at any level. And we know Mad Minutes cause math anxiety. This bleeds into the next category…

Poor Pedagogy Preparation

“They’ll be lectured to at high school.” Often, this is an assumption, one many HS teachers I know take issue with. And, even if it is true, “I want to get them used to it” is not much of a defence. The same holds true of assessment and homework. Future poor practice should never be the reason for current poor practice. High school math teachers are guilty of making assumptions and justifications looking ahead, too.

They’ll Need High School Math for High School Math

Michael Pershan posted a few calculus readiness tests on his blog. One question jumped out at me:

Let $f\left( x\right) =2x^{2}-2x$. Simplify $\dfrac {f\left( x+h\right)-f\left( x\right) } {h}$.

If this isn’t calculus, it’s damn close. I can’t think of a conceptual context outside of calculus in which there’s a need for the difference quotient. (Compare this with what they’ll really need for calculus from Christopher Danielson’s NCTM session from a year ago.)

I wonder what this looks like at HS. Maybe SWBAT simplify $\dfrac {-\left( -7\right) \pm \sqrt {\left( -7\right) ^{2}-4\left( 2\right) \left( 4\right) }} {2\left( 2\right) }$ as readiness for quadratics? I should stop, lest my HS brethren get any ideas.

This is silly, but it does illustrate one problem I have with TNIFHS: we meet students where they’re at, not where we want them to be.

The Affective Domain

So, what will they need? “Give me a student with a positive attitude towards mathematics, who’s persistent, who’s curious, etc. and she will be successful in high school,” I’ve answered in the past. I stand by this.

But there’s a problem with this answer. Implied in “they’ll need it for high school” is “they’ll need it before high school” (see times tables). I’ve met HS math teachers waiting for these curious, persistent students to one day show up at their classroom doors.

Another problem: there are big ideas, or enduring understandings, or key concepts, or whatever you want to call them, in mathematics that students will need for high school and this answer gives them short shrift. These will be discussed in Part 2.

Timbits

I took this photo last summer.

Didn’t know what to do with it. Still don’t. Not enough there for a rich task. A warm-up?

My first question: Suppose Tim Horton’s offers the next size. How much should they charge?

First, students will identify a geometric sequence in the number of Timbit. The common ratio, r, is 2. The next size is an 80 pack.

Students will also need to think about unit prices. And ignore the price-ending-in-nine nonsense. The unit prices are 20¢, 18¢, 16¢. An arithmetic sequence! The common difference, d, is 2¢. The next unit price is 14¢.

Students will solve a problem that involves both — both! — a geometric and an arithmetic sequence. Rare in the textbook, rarer still in the real-world. Okay, this may excite math teachers more than their students.

My follow-up question: Suppose Tim Horton’s continues this pricing. How many Timbits should you get for free?

Math Picture Book Post #6: Fika

For fans of arrays (and those with OCD), there’s much to like about Fika, the Ikea cookbook. Each recipe spans two pages: the ingredients on the first, the finished product on the second.

A sample:

My daughters and I have been talking skip counting, equal grouping, repeated addition, arrays, multiplication, etc. “How many? How do you know?”

We got in on the act:

Pythagorean Exploration

I don’t love this textbook task.

Too many substeps before students return to the question: what’s the relationship between the length of the sides of a right triangle?

“For each right triangle, write an addition statement…”? C’mon!

But I’m hesitant to join the down with textbooks revolution; I don’t want to associate myself with the back to basics movement. So in conversations where the suggested alternative is more worked examples, I soften my criticism.

Besides, it gives me something to modify. Instead of completing the table, I could challenge students to find right triangles and ask “What do you notice?”

One problem: this requires “attend to precision” to do some heavy lifting.

The 4-7-8 Right Triangle

This leads to some truly awkward feedback: “Are you sure it’s a right triangle? You might want to measure again.”

GeoGebra may provide a solution.

Click to view on GeoGebraTube

Pythagorean Mistakes

Consider the math mistakes below. Not real samples of student work (for that, go here), but real mistakes. I’ve seen each one. I think you’ll recognize them.

Homework

1. What math mistake did each student make?

2. What are some implications for our work?

Good. Now answer questions 3 and 4.

3. What role did memorization of the times table play?

4. What are some implications for the conversations we could be having?

[Misleading Graph] Peyton Manning vs. Russell Wilson

Does the graph create the impression that Peyton Manning has about 10 times as many pass attempts as Russell Wilson?

What can you do with this?

One approach would be to show students the graph and ask how this visual representation could be misleading. Point to the sizes of the circles.

A different approach could be to remove information (and add perplexity). Show them this:

Have students estimate Peyton Manning’s career pass attempts. I’m anticating many students will compare the sizes of the circles. They’ll think about how many green circles could fit in the orange circle. They may not think 100, but I’m confident they’ll think much more than 10. They may have other strategies. Have students share them.

Give students rulers (and the formula A = πr² if they ask for it). Ask them if they’d like to revise their estimate.

Reveal this:

Were students misled? I’m anticipating some will compare the diameters. Take advantage of that. If not, challenge them to find out why the circles are the sizes they are.

Given Manning’s circle, have students draw Wilson’s circle to the correct size. Again, have students share strategies.

(I’ve created this applet in GeoGebra. Not sure what, if anything, it gets me.)

Allowing students to possibly be misled by a misleading graph… should’ve thought of that earlier.

I don’t think @ESPNStatsInfo is trying to suggest a much wider experience gap. Seahawks fans may disagree, but the tweet backs me up. This is accidental: the result of focussing on graphic, not info, in infographic.

World’s Worst Person In Sports

Last week, Keith Olbermann named the Canucks’ Tom Sestito “World’s Worst Person In Sports.” In a game against the Kings, Sestito racked up 27 penalty minutes. His total ice time for the night? One second.

27:00 to 0:01 is an impressive stat. It’s hard to imagine this being surpassed. Sure, twenty-seven minutes can be topped. Randy Holt holds the NHL record for most penalty minutes in one game (67). The NHL record for most penalties in one game (10) belongs to Chris Nilan. But to do so in one second?! Inconceivable.

“I’d describe [Sestito] as a hockey player except he’s not,” Olbermann says. To make this point, he goes on to compare Sestito to Gretzky. That’s right: “The Great One” is his hockey player/”boxing hobo on skates” referent. In 101 games, Sestito had scored 9 goals, 885 shy of Gretzky’s record. Olbermann notes that Sestito would have to play about 10 000 games, or 123 seasons, to break the NHL record. Well, yeah, assuming he can keep up this pace.

I considered giving this the three-act treatment and bleeping Olbermann. But “When will Sestito break Gretzky’s record?” is not the first question that comes to your mind, is it? A more natural question re: Sestito might be “How many seasons would Sestito have to play to break Dave “Tiger” Williams’ record of 3966 career PIMs?” Apples to apples.

Olbermann, 54, followed this up by feuding with Tom Sestito’s sister, 13, on Twitter. Nice use of a unit rate by the kid: