Shocker: Alberta, Canada Schools Reinstate Classic Multiplication Tables Drilling; New Study Shows Power of Memorization-Based Learning
Another fashionable failure.
Alberta's experiment seems similar to the approach in Common Core.
When school returns next month in Alberta, for example, the requirement for students to memorize the multiplication tables will be reinstated, following an awkward climb down by the province's education ministry in March.One critic of the government�s adoption of "discovery-based learning," Ken Porteous, a retired engineering professor, put it bluntly: "There is nothing to discover. The tried and true methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division work just fine as they have for centuries. There is no benefit and in fact a huge downside to students being asked to discover other methods of performing these operations and picking the one which they like. This just leads to confusion which ultimately translates into frustration, a strong dislike for mathematics and a desire to drop out of any form of mathematics course at the earliest opportunity."
A new study demonstrates that memorization is not some crude manner of learning, but rather one that remains vital. They monitored the brains as young children did simple math by various means, from counting on fingers to applying memorized rules. They monitored them over a period of time as the kids advanced in mathematical sophistication.
The hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with factual memory, appears important in stimulating the higher reasoning functions of the brain.
Read it all here...
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=351372
Another fashionable failure.
Alberta's experiment seems similar to the approach in Common Core.
When school returns next month in Alberta, for example, the requirement for students to memorize the multiplication tables will be reinstated, following an awkward climb down by the province's education ministry in March.One critic of the government�s adoption of "discovery-based learning," Ken Porteous, a retired engineering professor, put it bluntly: "There is nothing to discover. The tried and true methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division work just fine as they have for centuries. There is no benefit and in fact a huge downside to students being asked to discover other methods of performing these operations and picking the one which they like. This just leads to confusion which ultimately translates into frustration, a strong dislike for mathematics and a desire to drop out of any form of mathematics course at the earliest opportunity."
A new study demonstrates that memorization is not some crude manner of learning, but rather one that remains vital. They monitored the brains as young children did simple math by various means, from counting on fingers to applying memorized rules. They monitored them over a period of time as the kids advanced in mathematical sophistication.
The hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with factual memory, appears important in stimulating the higher reasoning functions of the brain.
Read it all here...
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=351372
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