Everyday Mathematics Methods:

Everyday Mathematics takes what appears to be an unusual approach to teaching mathematics. Teachers no longer 'teach' math, they 'facilitate' math. Students are expected to 'discover' 2,000 years of mathematics in their K-12 career!

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (funded by the NSF) has changed the methods of teaching math. Check out the links page for the history. Other sites have it all very well documented.

EM, and other 'reform-math' programs de-emphasize correctness in favor of 'higher-order thinking'. The State of Michigan has also adopted this type of thinking in their standards. See the Board comments from Sept 25 for examples of questions on the MEAP.

What does this mean to students in Plymouth-Canton?

Scrolling, Partial Sums, Partial Products, Lattice Multiplication... These may be effective supplements to math education. They are not the core of a math education.

 

Basics:

Mathematics is: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. (Click on each basic for more details)

In EM, students are expected to 'discover' these basics by themselves or in groups. Teachers provide different methods (algorithms) after this discovery phase.

Students are then supposed to 'choose' what method they like best and use it from then on. The standard methods are taught last (if at all). By that time, students are committed to their favorite methods. The algorithms pushed by EM work well for problems with no more than 2-digits. Anything bigger and it gets unwieldy. See the Multiplication page for details.

For any difficult problem (more than 2-digits, dividing by a decimal), EM says "Use a calculator". Ask your child to perform the following multiplication using the Lattice Method:

329.75 x 1.23 = ?

Don't expect a correct answer. Make sure plenty of paper is available.

This is all completely WRONG! Students MUST know and be able to use the standard algorithms with ease if they are to suceed in Algebra. Too many of our students 'choose' algorithms that don't work in middle school and high school. They have to learn the basics from scratch.

Once EM 'facilitates discovery' of these non-standard algoritms, they don't get practiced enough to generate confidence anyway. Three practice problems doesn't ensure mastery.

Kumon, Sylvan and other learning centers succeed in teaching mathematics by having students practice.

Fortunately, in November, the NCTM finally admitted that students should learn the standard algorithms. EM does not recognize this.

P-CCS must begin TEACHING the standard algorithms as THE STANDARD.

Everyday Mathematics should be discontinued for this reason alone.