I read this persons response to the posting of this worksheet and I understand their point, but sharply disagree. They insist that being an engineer does not give credentials to criticize teaching method and that among other things that the number line was to teach a thought process, not to actually compute the answer. I too am a nuclear engineer and a physics education major (two B.S. degrees) and I have used number lines on many occasions both to help understand and to explain to others mathematical concepts and processes. However I know from personal experience like this mother with my own daughter that the methods being taught to compute answers are overly complex and confusing. I once spent over an hour trying to learn myself the long division method being taught to my daughter in elementary school for a four digit number divided by a one or two digit number. After extensive reading of the textbook I finally go it and it took only one full page of paper going from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. I then showed her how I was taught to do the same problem which took just a few seconds and about one tenth of the space. I think these text books are being written by people who have never had to actually do any math by hand in their lives...they have always used calculators, so they have no idea how to work a problem simply and efficiently because they have never had to do it. I dont know how to solve THAT problem, but I can certainly do math much better than the writers of these textbooks, even if I am just a lowly engineer.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 04:58:59 +0000
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