Math Investigations - Questions & Concerns

[mimi]

In our school, we have spent the last four years iimplementing the MATH INVESTIGATIONS program. As a fourth grade teacher I will be starting my third year of teaching Investiagions. I see some strengths in the program, but I continue to have questions and concerns.

First, the kids do not learn their basic facts with this program. I know I'm a veteran and have been teaching for 22 years, but I don't care who you are, you can't do math until you know those facts. So here I have a program that is very time-consuming in the classroom, and I feel the need to take extra time to teach the basic facts.

Also, I had twenty-five kids in my math program last year. That's a lot when you are teaching Investigations. Any ideas as to how to work with large numbers. Assessment can be a nightmare! And I don't do enough of the informal assessments because I just can't always get to each student.

My final question is more for secondary teachers. It's also as much a "parent" question as a "teacher" one. Does Investigations adequately prepare students for the more traditional math they will be exposed to in high school? I have a sixteen-year-old son who had a very traditional math education in elementary school. He sometimes struggles, but basically does B work in high school math. I now have a 10-year-old daughter who is struggling with Investigations. Will she really be "lost" as she gets older?

[Unregistered]

I looked over the Math Investigations site and it doesn't look good. For example, consider the following worksheet:

http://www.mathinvestigations.com/CandyMath.htm

Fun activities, but nothing really learned. Students have a lot of "data" on hand, but unless they are exceptionally sharp they won't understand what it all means.

For example, consider Problem 5, where it asks students to find the number of groups-of-four it can make with a bag of candy, and how many are left over. Suppose the students finds they can make two groups of four, with one left over. So what? What does that tell them?

[Unregistered]

The trick with investigations is the changing of the teacher's role. If the program is impemented and the children are allowed to explore, it will take luck and supplementing to insure student learning. However, if a teacher launches an investigation unit with some foresight as to what mathemeatical strategies he/she would like to emerge, then the teacher can look for those strategies in student work and guide the class to see a mathematical trajectory. The sky is the limit if you have a grasp on constructivist methods. Here's an example:

Say you have an investigation that shows a sequence of connected boxes that illustrates a growing pattern and asks students to predict the fifth and fifteenth box in the sequence. As a teacher, I know that the entry level is the recursive method, or adding the same number to the pattern each time. I also know that their are algebraic methods to solving the problem. My job is to seek out these strategies in my students, press the ones that are ready to move further, and select models of each strategy to be shared in order from least to most sophisticated. That way, everyone has an entry level basis for success in the math, and those who can, will push themselves.


As far as basic facts, if one habitually implements the 10 minute math activities, the basic facts wil be practiced and mastered with added number sense.

The program is not easy to use and is not a scripted program. It provides open-ended, high rigor situations that need to be guided by a masterful facilitator. The best tool is to have team to look at student work with and plan together. I hope this was helpful.

[nclbmom]

I believe with a passion that children can only succeed with math if they get a solid groundwork in basic math facts by 4th grade (as the NCTM now, albeit low-key, attempts to stress in its new Curriculum Focal Points). Why do teachers keep on wasting time with these new curriculum materials that leave kids confused, wasting time thinking of several different ways to solve a problem, and then having an occasional math fact test to see if they happen to have picked up some of these by chance along the way? As a parent I'm tired of being given packets with silly math games and being asked to teach my kids math facts at home because teachers are too busy with this useless curriculum. They should teach them in the classroom and make sure every child knows them backwards. Third graders should be reciting times tables daily in class and tested randomly once a week. How can a child do long division or reduce fractions if he doesn't know his math facts inside and out? Every child can learn these. Elementary age children are like sponges. Memorization is no big deal to them.