I fear I’ve only become a specialist in advocacy in the last few months so I’m far from an expert on this pathway. However, some steps that I might follow would be to: (i) contact your legislators about being a legislative aide and gaining information on education advocacy; (ii) Contact education advocacy groups such as “Kentucky Together”, “Prichard Committee” and the “Kentucky Educators Association” and discuss how you might work as a volunteer on advocacy issues and (iii) contact local school board members to discuss a pathway to advocacy and how you might help deliver a positive message on mathematics education.
KCM has been funded. If we had not been, we would potentially have hung around to transition some of our programs and resources to other math education stakeholders in Kentucky but we would have likely have needed to close down very shortly.
the common core was based on research that shows the effectiveness of various big ideas. A very 10000 feet up overview of the associated research on the effectiveness of these big ideas can be seen at https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ScienceBehindCCSS-reportv2.pdf. The CCSS has been developed to create a coherent k-12 system and we are 6 years away from having students that have passed through the entire system so systemic research is still tentative and I don’t know of studies that have looked at long term retention in the context of the CCSs. A nice summary of some of the research available thus far on the CCSS can be seen at https://achievethecore.org/category/420/research-and-articles.
This is a huge issue. Current elementary school teacher ed programs often have very modest math content requirements. Pedagogical capacity without thorough knowledge of the material being taught simply doesn’t work. PD, such as that provided by the KCM, can help however it is not meant to be a substitute for academic preparation. So I certainly agree with the gist of your question that society is not doing what it needs to do to assure elementary school mathematics education is a priority. I would not necessarily use the tool “devalue” but I would say that society needs to better understand the considerable pedagogical and content knowledge for required for high quality mathematics education in elementary schools and take steps to assure that teachers are better prepared.
A few that come to mind include experiential learning, number talks, projects centered on associating mathematics with students individual areas of interest, and labs/activities that use the instructor as a facilitator to create contexts for making sense of mathematics and allowing students to figure concepts out for themselves.
A few that come to mind include experiential learning, number talks, projects centered on associating mathematics with students individual areas of interest, and labs/activities that use the instructor as a facilitator to create contexts for making sense of mathematics and allowing students to figure concepts out for themselves.
My opinion is that when mathematics is taught in isolation and not associated with the world about us, it will be loved or hated as an isolated field. If it is better connected to the world around us, it opens the door to being appreciated as a vital tool used to understand other fields students love. I believe this creates a greater likelihood for “middle ground” perspectives.
There is a perceived need, at times, to teach all permutations of a concept which can create long and unmanageable syllabi. I would like to see fundamental topics taught with innovative pedagogies that allow students to understand them well. When these core ideas are well understood, my experience is that students can figure out most permutations on their own.
I would not disagree with Lockhart’s thoughts however implementation of such a vision would require enormously talented instructors in both pedagogy and content. While very cognizant of ideals, my work is on the applied side which requires that we operate within our current p-20 structure. I don’t believe that our current society encourages the recruitment and development of instructors with the potential to realize this p-20 vision. So, from an applied perspective, serious consideration would require societal shifts well beyond the purview of only math education.
I would like to see fewer topics so that students have the time to make sense of them and learn them well. There is often a perceived need to teach all permutations of a concept which can create long and unmanageable syllabi. I would like to see fundamental topics taught with innovative pedagogies that allow students to make sense of them and understand them well. When these core ideas are well understood, my experience is that students can figure out most permutations on their own.
I, being an optimist, believe that mathematics can be taught with innovative pedagogies which engage students and allow them to make sense of concepts. My experience with these pedagogies is that students both enjoy them and far more effectively learn the concepts. So I would not use the term “balance” as I hope they might both increase together.