My tweet @dmarain on 2-6-15 has generated hundreds of views but no opportunity to freely exchange ideas. I thought about setting up a twitter chat but, for now,I've opted for my blog as the vehicle.
So here's the question which is trending ...
What changes in education over the past 25 yrs do you think have most impacted how children learn?
Since this blog focuses mostly on issues in *math* ed
I'll kick this off by suggesting
1) Increased communication in the math classroom. I favor a balanced approach of direct instruction and posing open-ended nonroutine problems requiring team effort. NCTM promoted the importance of greater student-student and student-teacher interaction in 1989 and this is far more evident in our classrooms today.
2) Technology of course but specifically which technologies have had the greatest effect on learning math skills and math concepts. As a math educator, the access to and strategic use of powerful graphing calculators has enabled students to solve traditional problems in a variety of ways (multiple representation), explore topics in greater depth and model data more efficiently.
Anyone remember great software like Green Globs from the early 90's? We've come a long way since then with interactive geometry and algebra software and apps and we're still just at the toddler stage!
Haven't even mentioned the many curriculum projects, Common Core, and assessments but opinions on their benefits should vary widely.
OK, your turn. I hope this prompt will encourage comments but that's up to you. If you'd rather use twitter or other social network sites let me know. A chat on twitter might be the way to go in 2015.
So what is your Top 5 List of most significant changes?
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