Friday, July 25, 2014

Dan Meyer's TED Talk



The formulation of a problem is often more essential that its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.
~ Albert Einstein

TED Talk has more videos than you can shake a proverbial stick at, however with some searching there is a plethora of great math talks.  A talk for everyone! 

Dan Meyer, a high school math teacher, takes his 11 minutes and 36 seconds of Ted fame, and discusses why textbooks should really be thrown out the window in this age of technology.  He compares the boring old problems we find in our textbooks to watching 4 hours of Two and Half Men.  Watch it, and call it a day.  No one is going to recall what they learned the way we’re teaching it anyway.

Why?

I’m so glad you asked.

The reason is simple.  The textx don’t present problems in a way in which we would see them in our everyday lives.  There is never going to be a time when we’re faced with a problem in our lives when everything is laid out perfectly before us, including the formula, graph and all the variables.

The problem here is that we aren’t encouraging our students to figure out what the problem really is, and to take an active part in formulating the problem, as our friend Albert points out.

With all the technology at our fingertips today, there’s really no reason for math teachers to be relying on any textbook.  We’ve got everything we need, as long as you’ve got a little time, knowledge and imagination, in the technology at hand.  At the HWDSB, the idea is that every student from grade 4 to 12 will have an iPad by then end of the next five years.  What does this mean?  It means that textbooks should have a relatively short lifespan from this point on.

Check out his video and see if you agree.
Beth





                                                                                 

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