Love your examples & it’s important to remember how working memory overload applies to teachers (parents) and our students! Thanks for the confirmation again! Best always Gail B
Something I'd like to write about in the future is trying to articulate why people are so resistant to this type of practice. I think one reason has to do with automaticity, that because we as adults have that knowledge automatized we don't realize its importance.
The other reason I see is that practice gets associated with drill and kill -- that phrase is really powerful in lots of math spaces. And a lot of what people describe as drill and kill is actually bad, too repetitive, not enough spaced practice, not enough interleaving, not prioritizing the right skills, not scaffolded well. I think there's a real missing piece in math ed where lots of people who advocate for practice and automaticity label themselves as traditionalists. And lots of traditional practice was actually drill and kill. The missing piece is a clear articulation of what effective practice looks like.
Agree. I always struggle with the "simple" axes of debate, traditional versus progressive. My MAIN axis is on execution. I'd take well-executed anything in education (traditional or progressive). I would add that it's often HARDER to execute progressive well. If you can pull it off as a teacher, much respect. If you prescribe it as a policymaker, it probably won't go very well.
Yup, 100%. Someone who really values automaticity but doesn't know how to structure practice will assign tons and tons of repetitive practice for homework. Kids who are confused get frustrated, parents get mad, not much learning happens. Lots of wasted time for kids who are doing well. But even those kids who are doing well often forget stuff if there's no review down the road. Execution, execution execution.
Love your examples & it’s important to remember how working memory overload applies to teachers (parents) and our students! Thanks for the confirmation again! Best always Gail B
1. they would get diameter = 6 "for free."
I like how you put that.
2. I ran a district intervention this summer for 60 kids. It was opt in for middle school strugglers.
The idea was precisely to work on math automaticity, to free up working memory.
This won't surprise you Dylan: I was only permitted to do this because of my relationship with a key district person, and because it was summertime.
Otherwise the progressive math people would have blocked their own kids - even those who provably lack automaticity - from flashcards et al.
Something I'd like to write about in the future is trying to articulate why people are so resistant to this type of practice. I think one reason has to do with automaticity, that because we as adults have that knowledge automatized we don't realize its importance.
The other reason I see is that practice gets associated with drill and kill -- that phrase is really powerful in lots of math spaces. And a lot of what people describe as drill and kill is actually bad, too repetitive, not enough spaced practice, not enough interleaving, not prioritizing the right skills, not scaffolded well. I think there's a real missing piece in math ed where lots of people who advocate for practice and automaticity label themselves as traditionalists. And lots of traditional practice was actually drill and kill. The missing piece is a clear articulation of what effective practice looks like.
Agree. I always struggle with the "simple" axes of debate, traditional versus progressive. My MAIN axis is on execution. I'd take well-executed anything in education (traditional or progressive). I would add that it's often HARDER to execute progressive well. If you can pull it off as a teacher, much respect. If you prescribe it as a policymaker, it probably won't go very well.
Yup, 100%. Someone who really values automaticity but doesn't know how to structure practice will assign tons and tons of repetitive practice for homework. Kids who are confused get frustrated, parents get mad, not much learning happens. Lots of wasted time for kids who are doing well. But even those kids who are doing well often forget stuff if there's no review down the road. Execution, execution execution.