Tag: science teachers

Posted in Humor

Things you learn in math education forums

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You always get good ideas from forums (or fora), whatever form they are. If you want great insights about math and science education, try attending a PhD forum or seminar. I’ve just been to one. Following are some of the things I learned from the spirited discussion during the question and answer portion from these serious educators.

  1. We complain that our learners are not doing well in their Maths especially in secondary schools. These students are now engineers, doctors, lawyers, and politicians. We trust them anyway (except the politicians).
  2. It is only in math that 1+1 = 2. In real-life, it doesn’t work that way. For example, when two churches combine, you get 3 – the new one and the two old ones. This also applies to political parties.

    number theory
    number theory
  3. On the question of the relevance of your PhD to science education. Short answer by the speaker: I am now relevant to the science education. They now have one learned participant in the science education discourse.
  4. Why do we always expect the teachers to know all their Maths? Answer: It is probably because of our experience of our teachers in first grade as all-knowing. We believe everything teacher say and it was important for us then to have believe them. I think we need to grow up.
  5. Tell me, “Do you know of a mathematician who know all their mathematics?” Why should a math teacher know all their math? This is not fair to teachers. Do you complain in the media when a doctor misdiagnose your illness?math teachers
  6. “My conclusion in my review of literature why, despite the extent of research about teaching and learning algebra we still have not solved the difficulty of learning it, is that because algebra is a moving target.”
  7. “I initially thought to explore the reasons of students absenteeism in lectures. But then I thought, why should they when they can find great lectures in the net. Now I do not know how to proceed from here. Will anybody suggest a research question that’s not in the net?”
  8. “In my interview with teachers, most of them said that they don’t really know why students are not getting the test. When they teach them, they seem to understand everything they are discussing and solving. My interview with students confirms this. The students said that they understand everything during the lectures but they couldn’t answer the same questions and problems in the test.”
Posted in Assessment, Mathematics education

Conference on Assessing Science and Mathematics Learning

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http://www.upd.edu.ph/~ismed/icsme2010/index.html

2nd International Conference in Science and Mathematics Education via kwout

The University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (UP NISMED) will hold its second international conference in science and mathematics education on October 26-28, 2010.

The conference will feature plenary sessions, symposia, paper presentations, poster presentations, and workshops.

Click link for details or email me: erlines@ymail.com

Posted in Curriculum Reform

Understanding by Design, one more go

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I have so far written three posts about understanding by design. The first is about my  issues about DepEd’s adoption of understanding by design (UbD), the second is about the information posted about UbD Philippines in WikiPilipinas and the third is about curriculum change and UbD. These posts are very popular especially for readers from the Philippines. This is understandable as our Department of Education wants teachers to implement UbD this June 2010, barely two months from now. I don’t know if there’s a training out there about UbD for our public school teachers. Maybe they will have one, a week before the school year starts this June.

Is this backward or forward design?

Anyway, I am writing this post because some readers land on this blog searching for things like “how to teach algebra using UbD”, “teaching integers the UbD way”, etc. I don’t know if they are just looking for lesson plans using UbD which they will never find in this blog or there’s a misconception out there that UbD is a way of teaching. It is not. It is more a way of planning your lesson rather than how to teach your lesson. In fact the only difference that I see between UbD and the current way of planning the lesson is in the format, not in the way you will actually teach the lesson. UbD says theirs uses backward design. In this model you start with thinking on how you will assess understanding before selecting and organizing your learning activities.  For lack of term, let’s call the traditional method forward design. In this model you think about how you will assess understanding after selecting and organizing your learning activities. In both models of course you start with your learning goals. In UbD it’s called enduring understanding, in the traditional one it is called objectives.

I attended an international conference on science and mathematics teaching a few months ago. One of the parallel session presenter reported her research which compares the use of UbD way of planning the lesson and their so called usual way of planning the lesson for science. She said the class taught using UbD performed better than the one taught using the traditional one. So I asked why is that? She said that it’s because the class taught using UbD used inquiry-based teaching and the class taught using the traditional lesson plan format was taught by lecture method. So I asked further: In your country’s traditional way of planning the lesson, is it not possible to organize the lesson using inquiry-based teaching and teach it that way. She said, “of course we can, and we do. It depends upon the teacher”. There you go. Backward or forward design,  it’s still the teaching and not the format nor the way the lesson plan is prepared that spells the difference in learning.