Ch. 7: Making Math Meaningful

In this chapter, Schmoker discusses if there is really a need for higher math.  80% of the workforce will never use anything beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (p. 199).  Many students are lacking these skills.  They are so dependent on the calculator.  They need to be given multiple opportunities to practice and apply these skills.  Also, it is difficult many times to try and find a real life connection with what has to be taught.  

A phrase that kept coming up over and over in chapter was "interplay of numbers and words, especially on expressing quantitative relationships in meaningful sentences" (p. 202).  Students should be given about 15-20 opportunities each year to read current articles that could involve tables, demographic and quality-of-life statistics, and statistics.  Of course, students have to be shown multiple times how to read and interpret the information.  It must be read very carefully and repeatedly.  Think alouds are key to students understanding how we understand the text we read.  

I'm glad our data teams are going back to writing in the curriculum.  "When students are asked to explain or evaluate a solution or algorithm in writing, they come to a clearer, deeper understanding of a formula's meaning and application" (p. 211).   I like Doug Reeves's idea of giving a multiple choice test but have students explain why any one of the incorrect choices is wrong.  

One thing is for sure- we have to get writing back in the math classrooms!