In this article from TIME, the author discusses that while higher IQ can give an initial boost, hard work and effort are what is needed to succeed in math especially in middle and high school.
We see this often at Gideon. Children who initially struggled through memorizing addition facts but are steadfast in their practice and attendance will overcome and start to do very well later. Their attitudes generally remain positive as they know they are capable of mastering new (and sometimes difficult) concepts even if it requires repeating it five (or more) times. This experience builds them up for the next thing to overcome and can sustain them through the difficult part of doing many corrections. As everyone knows, a positive attitude can go a LONG way with learning! We remind the students of what they have mastered so far through their hard work and that this new item will be no different. We have long maintained that math is just like so many things in life (sports, piano, public speaking) in that you need to practice in order to do well.
You don’t have to be born with math skills; solving problems is a matter of studying and motivation.
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That may not seem like such a surprise, but it’s become easy to say ‘I just can’t do math.’ While some element of math achievement may be linked to natural inborn intelligence, when it comes to developing skills during high school, motivation and math study habits are much more important than IQ, according to a new study.
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To their surprise, the researchers found that IQ does not predict new learning — in other words, intelligence as measured by the IQ test does not indicate how likely students are to pick up new concepts or accumulate new skills. While children with higher IQs did have higher test scores from the beginning of the study, how much new material the kids learned over the years was not related to how smart they were, at least not once demographic factors were taken into account.
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So the children who improved in math over the years were disproportionately those who said they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with statements such as, “When doing math, the harder I try, the better I perform,” or “I invest a lot of effort in math, because I am interested in the subject”– even if they had not started out as high-achieving students. In contrast, kids who said they were motivated purely by the desire to get good grades saw no greater improvement over the average. As for study strategies, those who said they tried to forge connections between mathematical ideas typically improved faster than kids who employed more cursory rote-learning techniques.
While I still think putting pencil to paper is crucial while working out math problems, I heartily agree with some of the ideas espoused by the online Khan Academy’s founder, Salman Khan.
In much of the developed world, Khan writes, schools use a top-down teaching model first developed in Prussia, a Germanic kingdom known for “stiff whiskers, stiff hats, and stiff way of marching in lockstep.” Students must march ahead even if they haven’t understood what came before. Eventually, some stumble and tune out.
Khan’s big idea is that using online technology for lessons, quizzes, and constant assessment will create an affordable way to implement a different teaching ideal known as “mastery learning.” Everyone advances at his or her own pace. Don’t try algebra until you know your arithmetic. Spend less time in lectures and more in hands-on problem solving.
Khan Academy has over 3,000 free videos where you can get some quick help on anything from math to history to medicare. The idea is the student can rewind and rewatch the video as many times as needed to fully understand and go at his own pace instead of only learning from a live teacher trying to keep 30 students at the same place during a lecture. It’s a great resource if you need more instruction or refreshing on a topic.
While at Gideon we believe a live person will generally give a better explanation as he can respond to student questions and working out problems on paper leads to faster mastery (see here and here), a good video goes a long way when your teacher cannot be reached. Watching some Khan Academy videos inspired us to make our own which are designed to be back-up support for students in the Gideon program working through the booklets. The center instructor’s in-person guidance and a student’s pencil to paper practice are still our primary ways of attaining mastery, but the videos are useful if you need to see the steps animated or hear the sounds – such as in phonics.
They are found by visiting our Youtube channel or by scanning the QR code on the front of a booklet using a smart phone. We’ve completed most of the lower math and reading levels already!
This is an interesting piece on why the entry level (and other) jobs are open in many manufacturing companies.
“I can honestly say it’s probably an entry level problem. It’s those basic skill sets: show up on time, read, write, do math, [and] problem solve. I can’t tell you how many people [are] even coming out of higher ed with degrees who can’t put a sentence together without a major grammatical error. It’s a problem. If you can’t do the resume properly to get the job, you can’t come work for us. We’re in the business of making fasteners that hold systems together that protect people in the air when they’re flying. We’re in the business of perfection.” – Ryan Castella, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Click Bond, Inc.
In this article from TIME, an English teacher describes her negativity towards being required to have her students memorize word roots only to discover how beneficial it was. And that they didn’t hate it! Fancy that!
In an account of her experience in English Journal, she wrote, “asking students to do rote memorization was the antithesis of what I believed in most.” Still, her department head insisted on it, so Kail went forward with the attitude, “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.” She was sure her students wouldn’t like it, either.
Suzanne Kail’s experience is instructive. As soon as she began teaching her students the Greek and Latin origins of many English terms — that the root sta means “put in place or stand,” for example, and that cess means “to move or withdraw” — they eagerly began identifying familiar words that incorporated the roots, like “statue” and “recess.”
Kail’s students started using these terms in their writing, and many of them told her that their study of word roots helped them answer questions on the SAT and on Ohio’s state graduation exam. (Research confirms that instruction in word roots allows students to learn new vocabulary and figure out the meaning of words in context more easily.) For her part, Kail reports that she no longer sees rote memorization as “inherently evil.” Although committing the word roots to memory was a necessary first step, she notes, “the key was taking that old-school method and encouraging students to use their knowledge to practice higher-level thinking skills.”
Why memorization has gotten such a bad rap, I’ll never know as we all hear about how Michael Jordan got to legendary status doing thousands of free throws (muscle memorization). Your brain is no different. Want to get better? Practice, practice, practice. You don’t need to analyze the logic behind why 5 x 6 = 30 each and every time. After learning the concept initially, you need to just know it. 30. No finger counting. 30.
The articles continues with how memorization of math facts is crucial to higher math.
That’s also true of another old-fashioned method: drilling math facts, like the multiplication table. Although many progressive educators decry what they call “drill and kill” (kill students’ love of learning, that is), rapid mental retrieval of basic facts is a prerequisite for doing more complex, and more interesting, kinds of math. The only way to achieve this “automaticity,” so far as anyone has been able to determine, is to practice. And practice. Indeed, many experts who have observed the wide gap between the math scores of American and Chinese students on international tests attribute the Asian students’ advantage to their schools‘ relentless focus on memorizing math facts. Failure to do so can effectively close off the higher realms of mathematics: A study published in the journal Math Cognitionfound that most errors made by students working on complex math problems were due to a lack of automaticity in basic math facts.
If you want to see an example all the skills needed to solve complex fractions and algebra equations, click HERE to download Gideon’s: Why Master Lower Levels.
Here is a lovely story about how persistence, practice, and patience can overcome a severe math anxiety.
From nytimes.com, a 6th grade math teacher, Marilyn DePietto, speaks about how through learning and memorizing the basics and through daily practice in tutoring, a struggling student who hated math learned to like it and feel confident. Math success is not just for those with natural ability!
I learned later that Frankie had had anxiety about math since second grade. He had not mastered some basic skills, which became a compounded problem year after year.
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So began the months-long struggle to catch Frankie up on content, help him improve his work habits and most importantly, persuade him that it was possible for him to understand math.
Once-a-week tutoring during lunch is optional for my students. For Frankie, it was compulsory. I requested that Frankie be added into my extended day class, even though he technically wasn’t entitled to math remediation.
He started by practicing simple computation facts that he had never committed to memory with flashcards. On his own, he found a Web site that quizzed on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
After two weeks, and before I had administered a classroom exam, I gave Frankie a test on simple computations. He got 78 percent of them correct. The test didn’t count toward his average, but the small success was enough to convince Frankie to give math another try.
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During the next few months, with as much school-based guidance as I could muster, Frankie’s work habits improved. He learned that practice helps, and that when a teacher says, “Are there any questions?” she really means it.
He learned that studying does not mean staring at an open textbook, and that fractions actually do make sense. His peer tutors modeled good note-taking and organization, and filled gaps in his knowledge during independent and group work.
Once in a while I had to tattle to his mother that he hadn’t done his homework. A few times I had to go down to the cafeteria to retrieve him for tutoring when he “forgot.” But mostly, he seemed grateful for the extra help.
He did fail a test or two, but a failing grade was no longer a signal for him to throw in the towel.
This story doesn’t end with Frankie having the highest grades in the class, or graduating with honors in math. Though his math skills did improve steadily, I’m quite sure he has no interest in being a mathematician when he grows up.
On the last day of school, he thanked me for my help, but said, “I still don’t think math is my favorite subject.”
Favorite subject? I was amazed that it was even in contention.
This teacher also used peers to encourage, help, and model for him as well. Click here to read the full article.
