Math Wars and Assessment in Mathematics

If you are looking for ways to improve your math curricula for adults, it may be useful to understand the historic "math wars," prompted in 1983, as with many education reform debates with the report, A Nation at Risk, and various arguments for assessment and standards-based math curricula.

In the document Assessing Students' Math Learning, published by the Educational Development Center, Inc., you will find a review of the standards-based curriculum, which includes mundane notes such as the inclusion of a rubric and evaluating proficiency. The document begins by noting innovative recommendation from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in 1989 to include activities for students to work together, for students to spend less time on memorization and more time on concepts, to have activities that use concrete objects to model mathematical situations, and to give opportunities for students to explain math knowledge in speech and writing. The standards were revised and re-released in April, 2000.

In the article, Making peace in the math wars," by Kathy Stanford (2000), we hear more about the formation of math standards and how they have influenced the adult education math standards in the state of Massachusetts.

According to Stanford, the rift causes the math war is a philosophical difference between constructivists and behavioralists. The NCTM standards promote a curriculum based on the assumption that knowledge is contructed during new experiences when individuals develop their own knowledge base for understanding. Behavioralists disagree and argue learning is acquired through drills and practice.

Not everyone is a fan of the NCTM recommendations which learn toward constructivist math or discovery learning. In a letter to the News-Leader.com, on September 16, 2008, one parent/teacher wrote:

Communities all over the U.S. are in the process of, or already have, thrown out these time wasting and failing programs. The parents in Columbia, along with 50 professors from University of Missouri and other schools, have started a petition and are pushing hard to have a traditional math program brought back in to their schools. They have had constructivism longer than SPS are seeing math test scores fall precipitously due to it.

The Standards-based math has been adopted by schools with the help of funing from the National Science Foundation (NSF) since 1991. In a more thorough argument, as Barry Garelick also pummels the discovery learing method in his feature article, An A-mazing approach to math, which also offers an account of the politics of the math wars in terms. Garelick also points out the simple problem with the discovery learning to math approach, when applied in the elementary grades, students do not internalize the basic facts which make more complicated computations a breeze, for example: with the question of "what is 8 times 7," a child may add 8 seven times rather than rattle off the expected 56.

In terms of how constructivist theory applies to an adult math curriculum, Stafford says her "zeal" has diminished with time and experience; however, she reminds us that and andragogy for the adult learner should work to bring mediate the broad base of life experiences and knowledge with class content.

Despite this push for connecting the concept to the practical application, I think there is still a voice for the traditional approach of drilling, where the need to acquire the base of knowledge to approach a problem is needed in order construct the knowledge of how to use the concept.

The question that stands before teachers I know is how to tailor the necessary drill to acquire facts to resistant students?