Math Wars or Math Together

Change.

Change happens.

Change is happening faster.

Progress is different from change.

Now that I have said the obvious, what does it MEAN? How do we promote progress, and not just change without progress? To remind us of the basic meaning, ‘progress’ means movement towards a goal. In the context of mathematics (including developmental mathematics), our goals reflect shared understandings and values.

And, I think that is part of the problem with ‘math wars’ … we do not focus on our shared understandings and values, and we do not articulate the core goals of our work. I’ve been thinking about this after reading a ‘math wars’ type article (see http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-i-quit-teaching-math-at-sfcc.html) … this particular article (possibly not accurately) describes major disagreements at a community college, where the situation resulted in a faculty member resigning their position rather than ‘change’.

Too often, we leave the question of goals as a ‘given’ or a factor not requiring direct attention. Bad idea! If we want particular skills for our students, this implies some methodologies would be more appropriate than others. If we want our students to experience situations like a mathematician, then different methodologies would be more appropriate. If we want flexible problem solving (involving elements of both prior goals) for our students, an intelligent mix of methodologies would be more appropriate.

My own guess is, as a community, we would answer “We want all of these things” but to varying degrees. Within the framework of two courses, or perhaps three, I suspect that the capacity to reach multiple goals like this is just not there … between the resources that we can apply and the resources that our students can apply. The New Life model, overall, tends to favor the ‘mathematician’ and problem solving goals with less on basic skills. Other models, including the traditional framework and the redesign models (like emporium) tend to focus on basic skills (with little or no ‘mathematician’).

We are in this together, so we should get math together. Our conversations should start with, and focus on, the broad goals for our courses. Too often, we begin our conversations with “Do you include factoring in beginning algebra?” Topics are often not the end goal; topics are often secondary to the larger goals in a discipline.

Before launching a redesign project, your department (program, or whatever) should get its math together. As a profession, we need many more conversations about the core goals; we can have areas of agreement, which will lead to shared work … and shared work can lead to progress. Merely changing the delivery system is definitely not progress. Sure, we want higher pass rates; however, higher pass rates just means that there are more people at the end of step n … we would never accept an explanation that had a good conclusion without examining the quality of the steps preceding it, and this applies to our curriculum as well. Do steps 1 to n have any connection to our core goals? That’s my question for you.

Math wars helps nobody. Math together can lead to progress. Let us get our math together!!

Developmental Mathematics Revival!

Bringing a new vitality to college mathematics 2011 to 2019