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Re: Technology In Education
Posted:
Nov 29, 2007 10:39 AM
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On Nov 29, 2007, at 10:24 AM, Paul A. Tanner III wrote:
>
> - --- Michael Paul Goldenberg <mikegold@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>> Anyone see any calls for shooting any messengers?
>>
>> Please note the flatly inaccurate equating of "drill and kill" with
>> "computational practice. I have just received the entire second
>> edition of INVESTIGATIONS. There's a great deal of computational
>> practice in all the books. What there isn't is mindless drill and
>> kill. That's because the practice in these books is built on
>> principles similar to those described in John Van de Walle's methods
>>
>> texts in which students learn math facts in a logical way, build up
>> new fact knowledge from what they already know through more logical
>> extensions of simple ideas and basic properties of whole numbers, and
>>
>> do practice problems that also ask them to think about what way they
>>
>> might do the computations. I have to say that at first glance through
>>
>> them, I love these books. I wish there had been materials like this
>> in use when I was a kid. I certainly learned my facts without them,
>> but I missed a great deal that would readily have been apparent to me
>>
>> through thinking about the questions the exercises in these books
>> raise.
>>
>
> In other words, the textbook does not have a healthy mixture of
> exercises (the stuff that allows staying within what was actually
> taught to get a correct answer) and problems (the stuff that requires
> going beyond what was actually taught to get a correct answer)? It has
> only problems? (Note that some denigrate the former as "drill and
> kill".)
I said absolutely nothing of the kind, nor is it the case, Paul. Your
"other words" once again completely misrepresent what I wrote, what I
meant, and the truth. Other than that, you got me completely right.
No one advocates lack of practice. But the day you and the anti-
reform posse wake up to the fact that one can structure practice
intelligently so that there's no need for empty-headed drill that is
completely decontextualized from understanding will be a meaningful
step forward in your making a positive contribution instead of
dragging your collective feet against any real improvements from the
drudgery of instruction-by-worksheet. It's not that drill and
practice are useless, but that the way they are so often done is
truly mind-numbing and lacking in ANY thought on the part of the
teacher, the student, but most glaringly of all, the author of such
sheets (which can now more speedily be done by computers, as Wayne
correctly pointed out). It takes thought to construct practice
problems that actually make some sort of sense. See Van de Walle. See
the INVESTIGATIONS books.
You can't denigrate something that is actually foolish by calling it
what it is, Paul.
>
> This is important, because it raises questions about the overall
> structure of the teaching and learning process. One question would be,
> "Is having only one or the other a good idea?"
>
> Paul
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