Math class needs a makeover | Dan Meyer
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- Опубліковано 12 тра 2010
- www.ted.com Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10 - Наука та технологія
I think computer science and "computational thinking" could help solve this. In computer science, we are forced to create the formula to solve the problem, sometimes even before we begin the problem. If we teach math alongside these concepts, we may be able to better preserve and connect with math the computational and abstract thinking that Dan Meyer hopes we will retain.
"I'm gonna retire in a world that my students will run" that should enough for anyone who educates or trains others to care about their subjects and the material they teach
I have watched this video many times and each time it inspires me. Dan Meyer suggests that problems with too much guidance stifles thinking. By stripping away all the excess information, we can allow our students to think critically and solve real-life problems. What a great idea!
Anybody watch the short film after the TED talk?
I did it was interesting, but what was its relevance to Liberty Mutual? Some sort of mutual exchange occurred and something along those lines represents them?
We watched this in our class two days ago and it really opened my eyes as a teacher student. Amazing!
Now that I think about it, my high school math teachers didn't teach out of the text book very often. In trig, for example, we would go out on field trips and measure near by mountain peaks and map the area. That was an awesome class. :) Calculus didn't have the field trips, but still had more application problems than not.
This is one of the greatest videos I've seen in a long time. I recently took the GRE and in countless situations I've found myself asking whyyy am I computing these useless equations. If only I could see the application, then I would have a *reason* to be solving them. I think applying these concepts on schools would not only make better students, but also on the long run better scientists, teachers, parents, etc...
We have enough computers, no reason to turn people into walking processors.
we also need more teachers like this
I absolutely loved this. Thank you Ted and much respect to Dan Myer.
Awesome talk. We really need more teachers like him!
Excellent presentation. I'd like to add one more point, making interesting math games for computers, tablets & mobiles by a group of educators, children psychologists, sociologists, & software developers. Something like Angry Birds but for math.
great talk and amazing animation at the end :)
This is a great talk. Especially important is the fact that math books give you all the information and you just need to plug-n'-chug. This was the hardest thing for me to adjust to when I moved from High School to studying Mechanical Engineering; the problem of not having exact numbers, having to extrapolate information, needing to make reasonable assumptions.
The most valuable skill is to create problems in the real world and learning how to get the numbers you need and why they're important.
This guy is brilliant!
Nice to see someone so keen to give people the tools to think rather than telling them what to think
Well done lecture! Ask the shortest question possible. :)
it is encouraging that to see someone who will really educate in a real word type environment
Tell me about it. I barely scraped a C in school, after being thrown in the lowest classes throughout. Got forced into doing it at college(In Britain, that is ages 16-18 before university). and now I am achieving decent A grades in all my maths qualifications, and I am starting my mathematics degree in October.
2:30 - 4:30 This was the problem I had in school. I used to be easily frustrated with math because everyone was focused on teaching me how to plug information into a formula instead of teaching me how the formula itself worked and the logic behind it.
I love using Dan Meyers videos in class. But if your classroom management isn't on point, things can go awry.
This video was pretty interesting. I liked his analogy at the beginning about how students are like consumers who are forced to buy something they don't want to buy. He had a lot of valid points and the ones at the end seem like they might be very helpful for many teachers.
This is great, better than the other math teacher one because he starts tackling the problem of making maths relevant rather than avoiding it.
I wish I had a teacher like him!!
The problem with this is that it takes much more time. It would be plausible in high school, but in college, the professor has to move fast and just teach the base material due to time restrictions. If teachers could incorporate this material seamlessly with the material present while being able to make sure that all aspects of the lesson are taught.
I agree, and I also would so love if it could be incorporated. I think maybe it should be part of a critical thinking class of some kind. I also think that teachers should be held a little more accountable for how they teach, not just whether or not they are, "qualified" to teach. I think we would have better education if the teachers were held to a higher standard. This man clearly is a great teacher and I think that it comes from more than what tests he had to pass to become qualified to be an educator.
Terry Xiong I understand about the professor teaching higher level math having to move fast. But keep in mind, if your taken a high school math, chances are you are so much worst off in college. Though I never experience high school math at all, College is better structured in its curriculum (at least in my college). Since High School never goes beyond Calc 3 anyways, They might as well get rid of their curriculum and adopt this applied visual mathematics which is more beneficial to our students anyways.
As far as College is concern, or universities, they should get rid of those unnecessary physics application within our textbooks, along with worthless problems that you cant prove unless your in linear algebra. They then can have enough time to focus on teaching better the material which they probably never do anyways.
If teachers or professors really cared, then they should stop teaching it based on curriculum and just do it there own way.
it would help tremendously if teachers would bother to take 5 minutes to explain what's it good for learning how to find the roots in a quadratic equation.
Also it would help if parents partake in the process of educating their own kids instead of relying on school entirely.
bananian Thats very true about parents. Think of all the parents that just spoil their kids with their expensive fat iphones.
As for the roots, I done math videos on my channel that is design to understand what your doing, For example, I make very clear that algebra is just manipulating numbers but with variables thrown in. As far as numbers, it comes down to the core of adding, notation, what they mean, ext. Along with plotting, slopes, and so on.
As for the quadratic formula, its no different, its nothing more than a generalization depending whatever a b and c happen to be.
Yes, problem solving takes time. Just like in the real world. This sounds like a good argument for why the traditional "guy who knows all the things stands in front of a classroom and tells them all the things" is not a good way to educate.
There's no real way to know for sure how long it will take the student to figure out the problem, but giving them the answer is not acceptable, and they need to come up with the solution at SOME point otherwise they'll get used to leaving every problem in life totally unresolved.
Good education requires time and money, but it's infinitely worth it for any society.
I liked the talk and then the very cute animation at the end was perfect ending!
"General education can make you a living,self education can make you a fortune"-Jim rohn
This TED talk made me think. I love that! This actually makes me want to take a math class... From Dan! :)
What an awesome math teacher!
Need more teachers like him!
The end cartoon is awesome too
...and THAT is what a great teacher looks like! WOW!
He definitely found the key to the problem: that kids are only looking for an exact formula to copy, either from a text book or from another student. However, in a real job, you won't have an encyclopedia of formulas for every possible situation. The problem with his solution is that he needs to find a way to get individual students thinking on their own, outside of a class discussion where the smart kids do all the work.
great talk and nice animation at the end
I really liked it. This is so good, he not only showed a problem but also gave a solution.
I love this!!
Dan, you are awesome. Keep doing this.
@atiqahdotcom Yeah, I partially agree. What my maths teacher did was have an 'opener' to each lesson lasting about 15 minutes where he would give us an interesting real world problem - often a seemingly trivial problem which would turn out to be quite interesting - and then we'd get on with the usual abstract maths stuff. He was an amazing teacher. He'd always maintain a really fast pace to the lesson too, which I agree is important.
@shiftyjake BTW, when teaching or tutoring math fundamental #1 is that the child has memorized the axioms & can repeat them on demand. The child must be advised that the axioms are unprovable & merely obvious. Theorems are proved w/ the axioms. Theorems can be memorized & used without necessarily knowing the proofs. Most word probs are to be graphed or visualized on the Cartesian coordinate system. Time, distance/volume, & gravity(weight/mass) are usually denominators due to how the mind works.
Last thing...it's also a ton of fun. Now I know I chose to study math, but I still find math lectures boring most of the time. It's a lot of just cramming information into your brain, and if any questions arise then they are resolved in a matter of seconds. I actually struggle to stay awake sometimes, and that never happens in the class where we work on problems. I'm full of energy when I work on the problems, even when I'm really tired.
Awesome talk.
Speaking as a teacher: Yes. Very much yes.
nice talk, also was pleasantly surprised with that animated film at the end LOLL
That was excellent!
What a wonderful talk!
Fabulous!
I think this is a very interesting view on using textbooks in mathematics. My students I have taught in the past have each had individual issues with the textbook, may that be not understanding the wording of textbooks or may that be they know how to decode the textbook. When I was in high school I knew how to decode the textbook and I did well through cheating through the textbook. Overall great concept.
I recognized this when I was little. Turns out it makes me just as angry thinking about it as it did when I was drudging through it. I am predisposed to forgetting (with lightning speed) anything that I can't be convinced is useful to me. It made school so hard for me. (angry still)
My problem with math was always how it was taught, the lecture/homework model of teaching; I do NOT respond well to that model. I need interaction, or I'll NEVER retain what's being said in class.
The best math class I ever had was run more like a mentored study hall: we had an assignment sheet and a book, and a teacher at the front of the room who'd give us one-on-one instruction when we got stuck. I finished the textbook and got halfway through the next one before the year ended. Seriously.
I've had a few good math teachers in my lifetime but none of them were as creative as this guy. Wish more teachers thought like him
@ThisBoyTV I think they should have input, definitely. I thought many companies that made textbooks would have teachers / former teachers on staff.
Seems like visual learning is the way to go. We need to restructure the traditional learning system to be more visual based and incorporate active learning and make learning fun. 😊
This was the best thing I have seen in a long time - Amen, brother, you are the future of the world - thank you!
omg hes so great, young and idealistic. it took me to till my second, third, or mayve even...fourth? year of college (as a math major) to not totally fear the basic shitty model of learning I picked up in highschool. I thought I was great at math.. i was very good at math, and awesome at reading textbook code. I remember the teachers I've had that taught me this skill (which I have still yet to master) and they were the rare reasons that I became a math major!
Amazing Professor! I would love him to be my kids' teacher!
@HigherPlanes Hehe so true, and nice reference! ;)
i really like the cartoon at the end, good vibrations for sure
the only math class i ever did well in, or even liked, was with one hell of a good teacher. It was algebra and he taught us every single short cut he could. i wish there where more like him.
nice "Good Vibrations" clip afterwards.
@cosy18 Totally. My thought during the whole speech also.
I am a high school student, and I agree Meyer's problem of how all the values are given to fill into formulas...they need to make it a bit more realistic and challenging.
great ideas! also, doesn't the speaker look just a little bit like alan from two and a half men? that clip at the end was very well done!
I could not agree more!
@joe80dman I think the "New Math" movement back in in think the 50' and 60' had a lot to do with it.
However I find the compound interest problem very interesting because I don't think it's a problem that should not be gone over with out the concepts of limits. When I was first exposed to it, it was just some formula I was given to use on a specific set of problems and and no further explanation was given. I didn't know where it came from,and I sure as hell didn't know what e was.
@shiftyjake I agree that in too many settings math is not taught as concretely as it could be, but at the same time the students do get a lot of word problems which are "problem solvings". The prob with the array of world probs is that they are too scattered so the students puzzle it together, such as noting that time, space & gravity are usually the denominator, & that quite often a value judgement is implicit. Note however that math exists in the mind regardless of problem solving.
I wish I was in his class... He would make my Geometry class more fun!
@rh001YT That's a little advanced for kids who are just getting their heads around negative numbers. They aren't introduced to graphs til 5th or 6th grade and they generally don't know words like "axiom" and "theorem". They're still memorizing their times tables. Okay, some of them are memorizing their times tables. Most of them are just using the multiplication chart in the book because apparently they're allowed to.
dan meyer is so right! he is a revolution to math! thank God there is a US math teacher actually THINKING -- he learned from the classroom and is now actually doing something about the flaws in teaching math. hes great!!! thank your Dan!
Im going through the exact same thing you did. Its difficult because you are right they do put the best teachers into the more advanced classes. Everyday in my math class all we do is look at a board and watch my teacher do math exercises, not once does she ever really explain the problem. Am i really learning?
@HiAdrian I think his second category was math reasoning. The picture changes what becomes color and what's faded out when he begins to talk about math reasoning, and how "this is what we would love students to retain", kind of relating to how it isn't like #1. So yeah, he left out saying #1, and that may have been an accident (probably was), but it's funny that he was talking about reasoning there, and it took reasoning out to figure out that what he was talking about applied to the moment.
I really agree, I'm an A-level student in the UK who has really taken a liking to maths recently, I have a great teacher, but the syllabus and current teaching dogmas don't allow or encourage the most able to flourish, or even those who are interested to develop themselves. It seems the whole game is just about winning marks, which is something I do not appreciate.
@Nades129 Thanks for pointing that out. I usually stop the video at the last scene. I rather liked the animation, but I honestly didn't get the point of the short.
This was never a problem for me, because I've always, by some nature, been interested and intuitive with numbers, shapes, and generally, math. However, this also made it very confusing for me to watch many of my fellow classmates struggle to grasp what were very intuitive concepts for me. This video does an excellent job of clearing up that confusion. I applaud his quote of Einstein. Discovering the origin of a useful formula is always more interesting than learning to use the formula.
PERFECT EXAMPLE OF TRUE EDUCATION!!
Hope I had him as my math teacher, math would definitely be less traumatic!
Well, his conversation's a start in the right direction. Why was math developed thousands of years ago and how is it applicable to real life? It's important for students to be taught from this point of view. I say they should have more math classes where students go on field trips and solve real world field problems.
Love that talk! LIke!
Applause to the short at the end.
@divicool72 I disagree. When the axioms are not spelled out, and the students informed that they are intuitive and not provable, a great deal is cleared up for the student. And a few of the axioms are not very intuitive, such as closure. When the axioms are memorized, then as more maths are learned the student will, hopefully, identify which axioms are in play as the basis for each new learning. As with the axioms of chess, a move is or is not allowable according to the axioms.
nice!
hey this was my algebra 1 teacher last year
brilliant
Buenas tardes tendrían los subtítulos del video?
@ 2:00.
Score in my classroom : 5/5.
And that's the second best teacher I had in my life.
My school must suck by international standards...
Competing with students having a teacher like Dan Meyer just isn't fair :/
@rh001YT But generally, axioms in maths (at least at the level we are discussing) are so intuitive, that stating them outright isnt necessary...in fact, it might just confuse the kids.
I wish I had had this guy as my math teacher in HS.
@rh001YT I'm not sure how interesting math history would be to the 3rd and 4th graders I was dealing with, but it wouldn't address the main problem. By all means, the kids should show their work, but my issue was that they were more concerned with the baffling and redundant instructions given them than with actually solving the problem in whatever way got the job done. Also, there were several ways to solve the problems given to the kids as homework.
Dan Meyer has done a truly inspring job in this Ted talk. Meyer does an excellent job outlining a varitey of issues surrounding a typical math classroom. At its core, Meyer is suggesting that educators need to stop their traditional practices, and introduce a problem based approch to teaching. Furthermore, he suggests educators should refrain from providing students with too much assistance, but instead, allow them to think critically and develop a more authentic learning experience; one which is more true to their own life. The key emphasis is placed on the fact that to be successful in mathematics, we need to promote patient problem solving skills, which is not found in tradition textbook style of teaching (it is very cookie cutter). Having spent over a decade in math classes myself, it is regretable that the majority of Math classes continue to use a traditional textbook based learning process. It is clear that making vast changes to the math curriculum is not an easy feat, as the problem continue to persist 8 years later. Nonetheless, I myself plan to take a page from Dan Meyer's Talk, and work towards implementing his suggestions into my own classoom someday.
my algebra class pissed me off. I had better math reasoning than the teacher and created simpler formulae than the teacher. I'd finish my paper in 10 minutes and he'd send me to help other students and I'd teach them my formulae and they'd be finished quick. Then in later life people always had me pear down their data so they could do the math. This guy rules at this!
i dont get the mini animation at the end
ya ive taken up to a calculus class in my junior college, and ive found that i haven't really ever been able to apply mathematics into my life
@shiftyjake Well, that speaks to the prob with math education. The axioms are the rules of the game, like the rules of a card game or sport. Aristotle is said to have coaxed a 6 yr old slave boy into figuring out how to "double the (area of a) square", illustrating that the axioms are built into the mind. Kids can leard the rules to a card game, board game or sport, so they can learn/memorize the axioms (algebra & geom). Multiplication table up to 12 should be in memory by end of grade 4.
Of course, what about the more mathematically mature students? I think that's where in-class open-ended exercises come in. I'm in a college math class where we work on problems during class. We don't all make the same amount of progress on the problem. Weak and strong students alike find themselves struggling at some stage, but everyone learns something. The point is the problem is appropriate for a very wide range of mathematical maturity. Stronger students just go deeper, but everyone learns.
This shows up so often in my school. I have 97 in Algebra 2 accelerated and I read the textbook and fall asleep
Thats so awesome. Although, the biggest downside is the huge emphasis of breadth over depth in today's American Math curriculum. Allotting time to do these investigative activities is difficult already because there are a lot of deadlines and standardized testing teachers have to deal with
this is what i was thinking whilst failing high school algebra...
Google lockhart's lament. Read about how this, what is shown in the video, the idea that math is about solving problems. Useful problems, useless problems, fun facetious nugatory problems, with the mind alone (and a touch of pen and paper). It is what math education should be about.
@stephenetienne actually you would be surprised. I used to make comments similar to the ones you made but the more I learnt the more I realized that its in the deeper maths that surpass life skills. Decision processes, culture even random events can be shown in certain forms of math. Its actually kinda scary when you find out how deep mathematical logic can go. And how in depth its in-tangled into human nature. Communication, ethics, civic responsibility etc are all forms of maths and physics.
@alphacause I can probably help you a bit more there. Pressure. Many 1st word countries have become light with workloads they give their children. This has hampered how intense learning is for the child. However it has added a benefit by allowing for more creativity. Something that was previously only exhibited by a smaller percentage of the population previously.
people like this make me want to become a teacher myself....
Hope everyone would watch these videos and make their comments.Thanks.
@simbeau which goes to say that our math education curriculums are not the only thing that need reformation.