Talk:Reform mathematics

Unbalanced?

This article, as I read it on 6/24/07, clearly has some POV problems. Take this: "Traditional mathematics is often perceived as teaching a single path that leads to a single correct answer. This approach is de-emphasized in the new, higher standards." I don't know enough about this to make it NPOV, but if someone does, I wish they would. kdogg36 20:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Though the term 'standards based' seems to have some traction in the field, it seems to me that the term itself is npov; framing reform mathematics as 'standards based' implies that traditional mathematics was not based on any standard, and implies further that other methods of mathematics instruction are in some way arbitrary. Traditional mathematics instruction relying heavily on arithmatic was 'standard' and thus instruction based upon an established progression of arithmatic learning 'standards based' for much of the last 200 years. If people in the field disagree, I would be interested in the response, otherwise I would argue that all 'standards based' terminology be changed to 'reform' which is more neutral. Dialectric (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

As you point out at top, I think 'standards-based' is just the commonly-used jargon for this approach to teaching. On WP we have to go with common usage. Besides, after reading this article, it doesn't seem like anyone is being brainwashed by the name into believing that 'standards-based math' is good. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

This page needs serious reforms. I, as a non-American, cannot understand what reform mathematics at all just by reading the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.75.24.107 (talk) 07:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly agree. This article reads like a screed against standards-based math. There are many criticisms, and virtually no supporting statements or rebuttals. I put an 'unbalanced' tag on the article. I don't know anything about the issue either, so I can't correct the article, but somebody needs to. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The term "standards-based" has nothing to do with what is common, frequent, or normal. It's not like "four wheels are standard equipment on a car." It means that you have a specific, measurable "standard" or measuring stick, and you evaluate the students based on that standard (and not according to effort, handwriting, improvement, cooperativeness, who's the teacher's pet, etc.). For example, we could create a standard that says, "all seven year olds must be able to correctly add single-digit numbers."

I have never yet found a "traditionalist" who objected to this standard. In fact, they usually thought that this standard was traditional. Much of traditional mathematics instruction is highly compatible with standards-based approaches. (The part that isn't compatible is when the 1950s-era teacher says, "Sorry you're still getting the wrong answers, but the class needs to move on to the next topic anyway.") Nearly all individualized instruction programs (such as homeschooling) use standards-based approaches.

Reform math, on the other hand, is a vague catchall for whatever is popular right now among people who are dissatisfied with the current state of things. What counts as a reform changes every couple of years, and proposed reforms can conflict with each other. For example, a few years ago someone proposed as a "reform" that students use math textbooks from the pre-Sputnik era at the same time that another group proposed making math for young children be a much more abstract subject. Furthermore, many reform-math/pro-progressive people strongly oppose standards (an objectively measurable standard prevents a teacher from teaching her/his "favorite" parts of math and skipping the least favorite parts), but they're pretty much stuck with them, because the states require that certain measurable topics be covered.

I think that what's confusing people is that you often get both approaches in the same package: Here's my fancy new "reform," which happens to also comply with certain government-required "standards." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Glad someone knows about this stuff. What do you think should be done with the article? Maybe the term 'Reform mathematics' is just too vague to merit an article. Should it be merged into Standards based education reform, or somewhere else? It only deals with the 'standards based' approach, so to start with, I think it should be renamed 'Standards based mathematics'. --Chetvorno^TALK 16:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

There aren't really any good solutions. I might move this page to standards-based mathematics (presuambly it's a redirect now) and then actually make the page be about standards-based mathematics instead of (standards+other garbage).

We could then make reform mathematics be a stub that says (nicely) "Reform math is whatever new fad is being pushed by some textbook salescritter this year; you might be looking for new math or standards-based mathematics or any number of other things." Alternatively, reform math could redirect to education reform. There are probably many other approaches that are just as good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I reorganized a lot of the article. Hope it's more understandable now. Roseapple (talk) 03:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Examples

Thanks for your work today. Can we come up with some good examples of the "high school calculus" and "elementary algebra"? Most of the critics don't actually know what any of this means, and when you point out that their own Addison Wesleys from decades ago included many "algebra" questions (in their regular find-the-missing number feature:  ? + 3 = 5), they're utterly astonished. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the article still needs a lot more organizing. Right now it's is a loose collection of ideas, including some of the principles and standards. What if it were organized like this:

1. Origins 2. Principles (subheading for each of six principles) 3. Standards (subheading for content standards and process standards) 4. Focal Points 5. Controversy

I'm puzzled by the references to Singapore Math - it's being lauded as a "traditional" math program, but reform mathematicians such as Van de Walle use it as an example of reform math. Don't know about the calculus/algebra controversy - would be hard to find sources for that. Roseapple (talk) 13:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I was also confused by calling Singapore Math "traditional." I expect that it is the traditional approach in Singapore, but it's definitely not in the US. (Somewhat better than what we've done in the past, maybe. But definitely not the same.)

Your proposed organization sounds like an improvement. I've just about given up on this article. Do you think we should scrap and write the new sections from scratch, or work with what we've got to make the new sections? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I was looking at the article Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and realized that these two articles are talking about the same thing, basically. I think your suggestion above that the two articles be merged is a good one. I think this article should remain in an abbreviated form, so someone searching for "Reform Mathematics" (which is how I found it) could be directed to the PSSM article from here. Then in the PSSM article the origins, principles, standards, focal points and controversy could be expanded upon. What do you think? Roseapple (talk) 20:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

So how about this: we turn PSSM into a decent article that explains the actual NCTM publications (following, I think, your five-part outline above). We make standards-based mathematics redirect to the PSSM page. Then we turn reform math (keeping its redirect, reform mathematics) into a disambiguation page that directs people to PSSM or to education reform (or maybe a sort of stub-and-dab page). It should increase the utility of the articles to people who want to learn, and having a really high-quality article at PSSM should reduce the, um, ill-informed garbage that some edu reform topics seem to attract. Does that sound good to you? Other than dramatically expanding PSSM, we'll have to fix links to "reform math" in a bunch of articles, but that's not too difficult to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, so a search will lead to the main article, PSSM. And the main article will have a summary of the main ideas of the Principles and Standards document as well as the controversies. Sounds good to me. I could work on that main article this week, I think. And when it is done this reform math article would shrink down to not too much. Roseapple (talk) 00:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC) I see you've started with the editing of the PSSM article - great!

Sources

Most of the controversy section is unsourced. Any sources for the controversies listed would be welcomed as we try to improve these articles. Roseapple (talk) 14:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you think about moving the controversy to math wars? Then reform mathematics can be a simple dab page containing three links:

• education reform, for the history of educational reform efforts
• PSSM, a model for standards-based mathematics instruction in North America
• math wars, the controversy about PSSM. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I had no idea there were so many articles about math education (and its controversies). I just noticed there's an article about Traditional mathematics which I suppose was created to counterbalance this article about reform math. I'm not sure what a dab page is, but this reform math article should probably have some brief explanation, then links to other articles (especially PSSM) that will further explain.

The controversy section of the PSSM article would be linked to the "math wars" article also, then? Makes sense to me. Roseapple (talk) 03:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles on Wikipedia are like wire coathangers: they proliferate when you aren't looking. We may find more if we keep looking.

A dab page is a disambiguation page, like EDU. They sometimes have a paragraph or two, but usually they let you pick between several relevant articles. Since I can't think of anything that belongs to reform math and doesn't also belong to one of the other articles, then I'm currently inclined to just listing the articles in a kind of "you may be looking for..." way. Of course, as we work on this during the week, we may come to a different conclusion, but that's my current thought.

I'm actually thinking about cutting and pasting the whole reform math controversy section into math wars (except that it seriously needs some clean up attention, as you so rightly noted, and I'm not sure whether it makes more sense to do the cleanup here in reform math, or after it joins math wars). But yes, in PSSM, I think we'd do well to just say Main article: math wars and try to summarize the whole controversy in a short paragraph or two for the convenience of people who didn't want to read the math wars article. In fact, I think I'll add the math wars link in a minute. At least that'll give us something under that section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I like your coathanger analogy :) It should work to have the bulk of the controversy from all the pages go to math wars. Since "Reform Math" is in common use as the term for math based on the standards, I think this article should keep most of the introduction it now has and include the "Terminology" section, then the links you propose. Everything else would be either in the PSSM article or math wars. This RM article then becomes a definition of the term with links to the main ideas. Someone who wanted to make this article more explicit (like the Traditional Math article) could do that after the major reorganization takes place.

The controversy section is, sadly, mostly OR at this point - but I know there are many reliable sources. Roseapple (talk) 12:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

One of many errors

Under "Dumbing Down or Raising the Bar?" we find this statement: "Even the 2006 revision to NCTM guidelines lauded Singapore Math, though they would downplay headlines that that the standards had retreated back towards basic skills." This needs to be rewritten. There is no such thing as NCTM Guidelines. If you mean the standards, note that there was no revision to the standards in 2006. If you mean the 2006 Focal Points (which was not a revision), note that there is no mention of Singapore Math in the Focal Points. At the very least, include some sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.184.57 (talk) 15:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Most of the controversy section is written without sources. Maybe everything that isn't sourced should be removed, since right now it's only someone's very biased opinion. Roseapple (talk) 23:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

That's fine with me, or it could be copied to math wars for sorting out later (and/or by other editors). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Improvements

Does this article seem more balanced now? Perhaps the neutrality tag can be removed. Roseapple (talk) 01:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The article has really improved since I first looked at it. Thanks for your work, WhatamIdoing, on this and the Principles and Standards article. Roseapple (talk) 02:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I need to get back to the PSSM. Also, what I've been doing with PSSM is all about the NCTM's views, and I need to get some higher-level summaries and criticisms in. I'm thinking about taking the text out of this article's PSSM section as a starting point. Do you have any other suggestions for sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything by Van de Walle represents the reform/NCTM position well. Reliable sources are certainly needed for the criticisms. Roseapple (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I like what you did to this today. It reads very well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This article looks better than the last time I read it. Keep up the good work. There is one sentence that needs fixing, or more likely deleting. "Integrated math texts have been criticized as covering too many topics in a haphazard sequence, while spending only brief time on topics such as solving linear equations which a traditional algebra class might devote months to deep understanding of a few important single topics." There is no citation. I do not believe that integrating the math curriculum is a reform issue. I am not aware of any mention of it in the NCTM standards. The fact is that nearly every country outside of North America integrates their math curricula and some states (e.g. Georgia this year and New York many years ago) have considered doing the same. An integrated curriculum can still be taught with either traditional direct instruction or with reform methods. Also, the idea that traditional classes promote "deep understanding" is one likely to be challenged by reformers. Actually, the case is rather the reverse. Many constructivists have been pushing the idea of covering only a few topics very deeply and some traditionalists have challenged this idea claiming it would leave some topics uncovered. Really, if a citation cannot be found to support this sentence, it should be deleted. Seberle (talk) 14:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Whenever you see a problem in an article like this, please feel free to fix it. If you'd like to draw attention to the need for a reference, just type {{fact}} at the end of the sentence. That will alert everyone to the need for a citation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, actually someone had already added a {{fact}} tag before me, so I guess I'm not the first to note a problem here. If no one comes up with a citation in the near future, I'll probably just delete the sentence, but I wanted to give others a chance to fix it. seberle (talk) 20:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Balance and Title

Robofish correctly moved the Unbalanced tag from the talk page to the main article. However, the unbalanced tag was from 2008 and the article has changed extensively since then. It was definitely unbalanced in 2008. I don't believe it is any longer. If anyone believes the article in its current form is unbalanced, they need to list their concerns on the talk page before reinstating the Unbalanced tag.

I question the title of the article, "Reform mathematics". Mathematics education has gone through extensive reform in most Western countries (and I assume the rest of the world as well). Finland, for example, credits its modern success to extensive research-based reforms in the 80s and 90s. England went through reform similar to the U.S. And so on for France, Australia and all other countries I am familiar with. The modern emphasis on inquiry and student-centered instruction is often referred to as "reform mathematics" or very similar terms in many countries' research literature. However this article is only about the North American reform. This is correctly clarified in the introduction, but it leaves the impression that similar reforms did not occur in other countries. The only difference I am aware of is that reform was more controversial in the U.S. than in most other countries, which accepted the reform with less criticism. Perhaps this article should be retitled "Reform mathematics (North America)" or "Reform mathematics (United States)"? Any other suggestions on how to fix this problem? --seberle (talk) 00:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this point. My understanding is that the term "reform mathematics" refers to a particular reform movement in the U.S. Seems like the alternate title you suggested would be fine. Or there could be a separate article titled "Mathematics reform" that would include mathematics reform movements in other countries. TimidGuy (talk) 20:47, 19 May 2012 (UTC)