Day 55 - Why Is Math Different Now? - Carrie Fortunato - BPS Math Coach

Our district math coach, Carrie Fortunato, shared this video which was created by Dr. Raj Shah of Math Plus Academy.  The video was created as an explanation for parents in regards to why math has changed so much since they were in school.

The bulleted points below highlight some of the key takeaways from the video.

• The biggest question for parents: Why are they teaching math so differently now than they did when we were growing up? 
•  We have decades of research that show that teaching people to memorize algorithms and execute procedures hasn't work for the majority of learners.
• With the technology available to people, being able to execute an algorithm in arithmetic to get an answer is a fairly useless skill.
• We need to teach kids to think and understand and use different strategies to solve problems.
• Research shows that when you give people a conceptual understanding of what's going on then it helps them understand concepts.
• Executing algorithms can be kinds of boring, but learning how to solve problems can be fun!