Homeschool Math Blog

This news comes from the university of Wisconsin-Madison. Large study shows females are equal to males in math skills The study author, Janet Hyde, says, "My message to parents is that they should have confidence in their daughter's math performance. They need to realize that women can do math just as well as men. These changes will encourage women to pursue occupations that require lots of math." I agree; parents AND teachers should never in any way imply that girls can't do the math just because they are girls. That's just not true! I also thought the mention of 48% of math majors being females was interesting. So, at least in pure math, genders seem to be quite equal. But I personally doubt that will happen in engineering because boys seem to be much more interested in that type of work.

This is a very interesting piece of research, and I personally believe in this "effect": that a teacher's attitude towards math can easily be passed on to his/her students. In this case, all the teachers studied were elementary and female. I figure the same could happen with male teachers too, affecting boys, if the teacher feared and/or disliked math. It's just a lot less likely because most elementary teachers are female, and also because math anxiety is more common among females. Girls may learn math anxiety from female teachers The article also points to the best solution: the elementary teachers need trained much better in math so they can teach it confidently, including teaching the concepts and the 'why's of math. Elsewhere: Girls inheriting math anxiety from female teachers? at Casting Out Nines

Denise has made a good post on the concept of division , which I heartily recommend. She deals with a study where Finnish researchers gave this problem about division and remainders to high school students and pre-service teachers: We know that: 498 ÷ 6 = 83. How could you use this relationship (without using long-division) to discover the answer to: 491 ÷ 6 = ? [No calculators allowed!] I really like the question. To solve it, you need to TRULY understand what DIVISION and remainders are all about! Now, let's think about it. Have you ever seen a pattern in division and remainders , like the one below? 20 ÷ 4 = 5 21 ÷ 4 = 5 R1, or 5 1/4 22 ÷ 4 = 5 R2, or 5 2/4 23 ÷ 4 = 5 R3, or 5 3/4 24 ÷ 4 = 6 25 ÷ 4 = 6 R1, or 6 1/4 26 ÷ 4 = 6 R2, or 6 2/4 27 ÷ 4 = 6 R3, or 6 3/4 28 ÷ 4 = 7 29 ÷ 4 = 7 R1, or 7 1/4 30 ÷ 4 = 7 R2, or 7 2/4 31 ÷ 4 = 7 R3, or 7 3/4 Students need to see and do such patterns when they are first learning basic division. The pattern shows that every fourth number ...

Just an interesting piece... a recent study has found that teaching conceptual understanding in math makes children learn better, as opposed to teaching procedures. You Do The Math: Explaining Basic Concepts Behind Math Problems Improves Children's Learning The children were taught about solving equations such as 4 + 5 + 3 = ___ + 3 either procedurally, or conceptually. Procedural instruction went kind of like this: "Add the three numbers on this side, 4 + 5 + 3. That's 12. Then subtract the number here from that, 12 - 3 = 9. That's the number that goes to the blank." In the conceptual group they were taught about equivalence, the equation having two sides that have to be equal. Of course... the conceptual teaching is the way to go! Here's a link to the research paper (in press): Matthews, P. & Rittle-Johnson, B. (in press). In pursuit of knowledge: Comparing self-explanation, concepts, and procedures as pedagogical tools. Journal of Experimental Child Psy...