Reply #5: I've taught math before, and the lack of numeracy is quite incredible. [View All]

[IrateCitizen]

However, I fault that to too much of the "classroom" work, combined with the introduction of calculators too early in the curriculum. I never understood why I was never allowed to use on in math class until I reached trigonometry, but having to manually do operations allowed me to develop a general sense of numeracy -- a feeling for how numbers work. When I would ask any high school seniors to add together 2 two-digit numbers and they had to use a calculator to do so, there's just something wrong.

However, there are going to be a lot of kids now who simply are not going to spend considerable amounts of time doing practice problems and computations in order to develop these kinds of skills. Likewise, there are a lot of kids for whom "book learning" isn't what fits their learning profile, especially in a society and culture that has become as "visual" as ours. Finally, exclusive "classroom" work treats subjects as if they are to be approached in an individual setting, when anyone who has worked a day in their lives knows that most real-life problems are hardly approached "individually" -- they are attacked with a team approach. THAT, not just classroom/book instruction, is what has produced our greatest technological advancements.

Project learning accomplishes all these objectives, if done properly. It provides classroom/book instruction as an introduction to new concepts. Those students strong in this area then take the knowledge they have gained through that initial instruction, and help other members of their team. More interpersonal learners will benefit from this phase. Using the knowledge to actually build or create something will then engage still other aspects of the learning profile, such as kinesthetic and spatial. Lastly, at all steps of the process, the students have to work together in order to complete the project successfully. Of course, a more "traditional" assessment should also be given after the project to ensure that individual students have mastered the new concept(s) learned and reinforced through the project.