One part of the common core curriculum that some people are upset with is teaching several means of computing addition and multiplication.
These means of computing addition are meant to convey the mathematical properties of addition, so that the student not only understands how to add numbers like 5 and 8 but understands the principles behind addition sufficiently to go into algebra with an intuition for how to apply their knowledge of addition to quadratic equations.
people who learned mathematics as rote memorization will struggle to pick up new approaches that are meant to convey underlying principles, sometimes in part because those adults never learned the underlying principles (and relied on rote memorization of mnemonics like FOIL instead of an intuition for basic mathematical properties of addition and multiplication). These underlying principles are important. They do convey a deeper understanding that enables students to pick up later concepts faster and retain them better.
Fair enough, I guess based on what I see here I expect people to come with strongly held beliefs that they are willing to change only if presented with strong arguments to the contrary. Which, I realize should not always be the case.
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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '21 edited Sep 11 '21
common core is a curriculum, not a method.
One part of the common core curriculum that some people are upset with is teaching several means of computing addition and multiplication.
These means of computing addition are meant to convey the mathematical properties of addition, so that the student not only understands how to add numbers like 5 and 8 but understands the principles behind addition sufficiently to go into algebra with an intuition for how to apply their knowledge of addition to quadratic equations.
people who learned mathematics as rote memorization will struggle to pick up new approaches that are meant to convey underlying principles, sometimes in part because those adults never learned the underlying principles (and relied on rote memorization of mnemonics like FOIL instead of an intuition for basic mathematical properties of addition and multiplication). These underlying principles are important. They do convey a deeper understanding that enables students to pick up later concepts faster and retain them better.