Lesley professor delivers memorial lecture at math teacher conference
October 26, 2009
Math teachers should change the focus of math instruction from skill and practice to problem-solving, Anne Collins, Director of Math Programs at Lesley University, said at a lecture last week.
Math education in America is stuck in a rut of students filling out formulas, doing repetitive practice work and, subsequently, finding themselves both unexcited and intimidated by the subject, Collins said, delivering the Richard Balomenos Memorial Lecture at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics regional conference in Boston. She called for the elimination of “busywork,” decrying it as a “passive and irrelevant experience.”
“If we do not make a concentrated effort to change the way we engage with and in the mathematics we teach we will have yet another generation of students who are mathphobic, avoid math at all costs and believe they are stupid,” Collins said. She called for a problem-solving approach to math education, saying “that doesn’t mean give them a word problem. That means give them a realistic situation where they have to make sense of it.”
Specifically, Collins called for teachers to explore the use of mathematics in a variety of professions and using corresponding problems to show the value and use of math skills in everyday work.
Collins took issue specifically with a “race-to-the-top” culture that fast-tracks promising math students toward AP classes without ever exploring real-world applications of math.
“What an injustice we’re doing for these youngsters who show an aptitude for mathematics,” Collins said.
A problem-solving-based method of teaching should begin in earlier grades, include all students, and be delivered by the best teachers, Collins said.
“We should have our most highly qualified teachers teaching elementary and middle school,” Collins said.
The Richard Balomenos Memorial Lecture honors the former Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of New Hampshire, who was killed in a 1986 car accident. The lecture is delivered annually by an educator who “will offer a strong and possibly controversial point of view that will hopefully spark us to think carefully about the improvement of math education,” according to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.