Parents still urging back-to-basics math
New curriculum hasn’t put to rest ‘discovery-based learning’ concerns
Teaching changes that were supposed to nudge Alberta’s math curriculum back toward traditional methods have failed to satisfy parents across the province, says one of the movement’s most vocal advocates.
Despite a 2014 update to explicitly require children to learn their times tables and step-by-step procedures for arithmetic, teachers across the province are teaching young students a variety of problem-solving methods that leave children and their parents confused and frustrated, Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies said.
“There has been improvement. The concern is the message hasn’t got across to all the school divisions,” Tran-Davies said.
The doctor and mother of three from Calmar has been advocating for a shift back to basics since 2013, when her oldest daughter’s math skills appeared to regress in school. She organized a petition, which has now been signed by more than 18,000 people, asking the education minister to steer curriculum back to time-tested math fundamentals.
Former Progressive Conservative education minister Jeff Johnson heeded her warning. In 2014, he told ministry officials to adjust the K-9 math curriculum to specify children are expected to memorize times tables and learn standard math algorithms.
Tran-Davies said she and some other parents have noticed the changes in their children’s classrooms since then. Parents in other towns and cities tell her math lessons are status quo, and encourage her to keep pushing the issue, she said. Since the NDP took office in 2015, she’s been attempting to meet with Education Minister David Eggen to share her concerns.
Last week, she received a letter from deputy education minister Curtis Clarke, saying it’s not up to the minister how math is taught in classrooms.
“We consider the matter of how mathematics is taught at individual schools closed at this time and will not be communicating further with you on this topic,” Tran-Davies quoted from the letter.
Now that Eggen has announced a new curriculum will be developed for all subject areas in French and English simultaneously, parents are “desperate” to find out if the inquiry-based learning they’re skeptical of will be too heavily emphasized in other subjects, she said.
“For them to play around with unproved methods, it’s not benign. They’re playing around with the lives of children,” Tran-Davies said.
Sometimes called discovery learning, inquiry-based learning is an education philosophy that favours understanding rather than memorization, emphasizing problem solving, critical thinking and applying knowledge rather than regurgitating it. Children are encouraged to pose their own questions and investigate the answers.
Discovery math isn’t part of the curriculum, Eggen’s press secretary Larissa Liepins said in an email. The curriculum only specifies what children need to learn, not how to teach it, she said.
“Discovery-based learning is one teaching approach that teachers may use in the classroom; however, Alberta Education does not advocate any one teaching approach over another,” Liepins said.
The elementary math curriculum does, however, specify students should learn multiple ways to solve problems. The Grade 3 “program of studies” says students should know how to “apply mental mathematics strategies and number properties, such as: using doubles; making 10; using the commutative property; using the property of zero; thinking addition for subtraction in order to understand and recall basic addition facts and related subtraction facts to 18.”
Not all children learn the same way. People whose eyes cross at the sight of long division might better understand it using a different approach, discovery math advocates say.
A 2013 ministerial order on student learning also emphasizes the importance of inquiry learning.
The minister’s office acknowledges some parents are unhappy with the approach. Tran-Davies’ feedback has been taken into consideration, Liepins said.
“We know there are some serious concerns with the current math curriculum. We’re listening and we are taking action to support students, parents and teachers,” she wrote.
The ministry is concerned about Alberta’s results on Canadian and international math tests, Liepins said. Performance of students has had “a slight decline” during the past decade, she said. Ministry staff are also concerned the curriculum isn’t clear enough.
The minister’s office is in talks with university education deans to discuss how to better prepare elementary school teachers to teach math. The education ministry is also designating “math contacts” in school districts to share updates with teachers and expanding professional development in math for elementary school teachers and student teachers.”
The K-4 curriculum is scheduled to be redeveloped by the end of 2018 and could make its way into classrooms by 2020.