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Common Core Improves Education – Math & Science
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- [ this card is really good] Common core is good for Math education – prefer our author who is a mathematician.
- STEM education is key to global competitiveness
- Proper STEM education is key to global competitiveness
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Common Core Improves Education – Math & ScienceCommon core is good for Math: teaches students how to learn and evaluate STEM.French 14 – Rose French, A staff writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC). The AJC is a national newspaper based in Atlanta. “In your schools; Today’s math lessons tied to tomorrow jobs.” State educators say the new Common Core standards --- controversial among some, who criticize them as a federal intrusion in schools --- should help buoy math performance. Over the past decade, Georgia has followed a pattern similar to other states: moving from a math curriculum that touched a number of topics toward a more conceptual approach, first under Georgia Performance Standards, now Common Core. Some critics complain the changing curriculum has contributed to Georgia's problems. Under Common Core math, teachers focus on fewer topics and explore them more deeply instead of teaching numerous math topics and repeating them from grade to grade because students don't fully grasp them. "We teach fractions starting in third grade, and we teach them every single year through eighth grade," said Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, who's written extensively about U.S. math education. "And yet at the end of eighth grade, students still don't know fractions." "I think in other countries ... they introduce them using multiple representations, and because they help students understand what a fraction is early on, then they don't have to cover it for five or six grades." Common Core attempts to mimic results in higher-achieving countries such as Singapore and South Korea, where math is thought of as something that must be learned through practice and hard work. In math classrooms in Asia, a teacher primarily leads the teaching of math, unlike in the U.S., where students often are divided into groups or practice at their desks --- unaided by teachers. School days are typically longer in Asian countries, and a greater proportion of the time is spent on math. Thurston Domina, a sociologist of education professor at University of California Irvine, says race, class and other socioeconomic factors can influence how students perform. So, too, can the cultural attitude in the U.S. "So kids will tell you, 'I'm good at math' or 'I'm not good at math.' And that's not good for anybody," Domina said. "The culture around math is particularly unhealthy in this country."
If that doesn't sound fuzzy, there's a simple reason: It isn't. To appreciate the changes under way, and perhaps to understand the anxiety provoked by Common Core, it's helpful to look at math before the core.
Math as rules starts early. Kids learn in elementary school that you can "add a zero to multiply by ten." And it's true, 237 x 10 = 2370. Never mind why. But then when kids learn decimals, the rule fails: 2.37 x 10 is not 2.370. One approach is to simply add another rule. But that's not the best way. Common Core saves us from plug-and-chug. In fact, math is based on a collection of ideas that do make sense. The rules come from the ideas. Common Core asks students to learn math this way, with both computational fluency and understanding of the ideas. Learning math this way leads to deeper understanding, obviates the need for endless rule-memorizing and provides the intellectual flexibility to apply math in new situations, ones for which the rules need to be adapted. (It's also a lot more fun.) Combining computational fluency with understanding makes for problem solvers who can genuinely use their math. This is what businesses want and what is necessary to use math in a quantitative discipline. Here is what good math learning produces: Students who can compute correctly and wisely, choosing the best way to do a given computation; students who can explain what they are doing when they solve a problem or use math to analyze a situation; and students who have the flexibility and understanding to find the best approach to a new problem. Common Core promotes this. It systematically and coherently specifies the topics and connections needed for math to make sense, and promotes both understanding and accuracy. No revolution This doesn't sound revolutionary because it's not. Common Core is a list of topics everyone knows we should teach. It doesn't tell teachers how to teach them (though it does ask that they teach them coherently, with understanding). It is also not a test, not a curriculum, not a set of homework problems, not a federal mandate and not a teacher evaluation tool.
Of course, the core will do best if parents can support their children in reaching these higher goals. Websites such as Khan Academy and Illustrative Mathematics have incorporated the standards and show best practices and well-crafted math problems. There is no doubt that the new standards are more rigorous. They will require more of our students, our teachers and our parents. Knowing what you are doing, instead of just knowing a set of rules, is the essential foundation for applying math to the real world. That's not fuzzy. It is smart. STEM education is key to global competitivenessThe Hill 13 – The Hill, a Pulitzer prize winning news blog based out of Washington DC. Primarily used for political commentary and analysis. 2015 "STEM fund key to U.S. global competitiveness", TheHill Blog. Available at: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/305061-stem-fund-key-to-us-global-competitiveness, Accessed 7-16-2015 Businesses, education groups and advocacy organizations have been following the progress of the legislation, but every state and virtually every community has a vested interest in the outcome as well. Last week in Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell and the state’s STEM Council issued their second annual report on STEM education in Delaware schools. One of the report’s findings illustrates a challenge we face nationally – for every unemployed person in Delaware, there are 3.8 open jobs in STEM fields. And for every non-STEM job there are 1.7 people in the state It isn’t advanced math, but for anyone struggling with the equation, Gov. Markell summed it up neatly: “If you’re in the STEM fields, take your pick. If you’re not in the STEM fields, join the line. To succeed in the brave new world, my top priority is making sure our education system prepares our students.” The governor may have oversimplified the state of affairs for effect, but his priorities are no different from those of the nation’s elected leaders, and those common priorities likely explain why the national STEM education fund enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. The STEM fund, in the hopes of its supporters in Congress, business and among education advocates, will help provide a long-term solution to the nation’s STEM jobs gap by strengthening our STEM education pipeline. A stark demonstration of the depth of the crisis appeared in early April when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services opened the application window for H-1B visas, which companies use to hire foreign high-skill workers to fill vacant positions in the U.S. The visas were exhausted within five days; the previous year, it took 10 weeks to meet the demand for those visas. And while the nation does not currently produce enough workers trained in STEM fields, the problem if not addressed will continue to worsen, affecting U.S. global competitiveness and the nation’s standing as a leader in innovation. One study projects that future STEM jobs will be in high demand, but also notes that technological changes in other occupations means that other fields will also be recruiting STEM talent. “STEM occupations will grow far more quickly than the economy as a whole (17 percent versus 10 percent), and will be the second-fastest growing occupational cluster, after Healthcare occupations,” according to a report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The researchers also project 2.4 million jobs openings in STEM fields by 2018, with 1.1 million new jobs and 1.3 million openings created by workers who leave the workforce. The report says: “America’s economic success will be driven by our ability to maintain a competitive advantage in technology and knowledge based industries. A commitment to STEM education funding within immigration reform efforts now underway will help ensure that we produce the skilled workers we need for the future. From Dover to Dubuque, every community and school system in the country has a vested interest in meeting this challenge.” Proper STEM education is key to global competitivenessGordon 14 – lawyer and former U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 6th congressional district, serving from 1985 until 2011. He was Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology from 2007 until 2011. He graduated cum laude from Middle Tennessee State University in 1971, where he was student body president, and earned a law degree from the University of Tennessee in 1973. 2014, "STEM Education: Key to America’s Global Competitiveness", USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog, Available at: http://scienceblogs.com/usasciencefestival/2014/04/19/stem-education-key-to-americas-global-competitiveness/, Accessed 7-16-2015 Our nation has a long and proud history as a global leader in the development of technological breakthroughs and the development of revolutionary products that change and save lives around the world. In recent years, however, fewer young Americans are entering fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and as a result, our global competitiveness is in jeopardy. For the past six years, the majority of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have been awarded to international owners, and fewer American students are pursuing advanced science degrees and the World Economic Forum ranks the United States 52nd in quality of math and science education. We can and must do better. At the same time, STEM occupations are poised to grow more quickly in the future than the economy as a whole. More than half of our nation’s economic growth since World War II can be attributed to development and adoption of new technologies and this area holds the path toward sustainable economic growth and prosperity for the next 50 years. A report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the workforce projected 2.4 million job openings in STEM fields by 2018. Only by developing a generation of workers prepared for those opportunities can America secure its continued global competitiveness. 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