http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/science/25math.html
Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices
By Kenneth Chang
New York Times, April 25, 2008
'One train leaves Station A at 6 p.m. traveling at 40 miles per hour
toward Station B. A second train leaves Station B at 7 p.m. traveling
on parallel tracks at 50 m.p.h. toward Station A. The stations are 400
miles apart. When do the trains pass each other?
Entranced, perhaps, by those infamous hypothetical trains, many
educators in recent years have incor****ated more and more examples
from the real world to teach abstract concepts. The idea is that
making math more relevant makes it easier to learn.
That idea may be wrong, if researchers at Ohio State University are
correct. An experiment by the researchers suggests that it might be
better to let the apples, oranges and locomotives stay in the real
world and, in the classroom, to focus on abstract equations, in this
case 40 (t + 1) = 400 - 50t, where t is the travel time in hours of
the second train. (The answer is below.)'
<rest at site>
If the study is correct, I wonder which math curricula are most
consistent with it. It appears to contradict the philosophy of
Everyday Mathematics (EM), which our public school use. The EM site
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/about.shtml#curriculum
says
"Students acquire knowledge and skills, and develop an understanding
of mathematics from their own experience. Mathematics is more
meaningful when it is rooted in real life contexts and situations, and
when children are given the op****tunity to become actively involved in
learning. Teachers and other adults play a very im****tant role in
providing children with rich and meaningful mathematical experiences."
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