Boys Versus Girls

In the article, “Math and Sex: Are Girls Born with Less Ability?” by Gina Bari Kolata, Camilla Benbow and Julian Stanley, from Johns Hopkins University, claim to have evidence that mathematical talent is less prevalent in girls. This data only supports what history portrays -- the recorded number of women mathematicians could be counted on two hands.
Surprisingly, this data was just discovered. Johns Hopkins states that in the beginning it wanted to find exceptionally gifted children, and did not expect to stumble into massive gender difference in SAT math scores. It is interesting that while the math scores are so different between the sexes, the verbal SAT scores are not. Each time Johns Hopkins tested a group, the verbal score stayed similar, but math scores were very distinct.
In the collective stages, Stanley and Benbow used the math SAT, claiming that it served as an aptitude test for seventh and eighth graders who have not yet learned the basic concepts of these problems: therefore children who do well are concluded to have unnatural ability. In the first testing they found ten thousand exceptional children which included 43% of girls. In fact, almost twice as many boys than girls scored higher than five-hundred on the math SAT.
Even though this data seems so well supported with more than ten-thousand student test scores backing it, Mary Gray, a mathematician at American University says she does not see the basis from which they draw their conclusions. There is too little known about the development of mathematical reasoning in a child to jump to gender difference caused by genetics rather then socialization. Johns Hopkins is trying to resolve this controversy. Many families are being surveyed as to what toys their children played with, what goals their parents set for them, and what test taking strategies were used.
Elizabeth Fennema says, “What their study means for women at large is very problematical.” Even though that the data is not yet wholly supported, in truth, these findings will affect other women in the world. The fact that their genetic material might affect how well they achieve in math might completely wipe out women in mathematics, except for a choice few.
Link to the article: http://www.jstor.org/view/00368075/ap993206/99a00150/0?currentResult=00368075%2bap993206%2b99a00150%2b0%2c00&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FAdvancedResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26q0%3DMath%2Band%2Bsex%253A%2Bare%2Bgirls%2Bborn%2Bwith%2Bless%2Bability%26f0%3Dti%26c0%3DAND%26q1%3DGina%2BBari%2BKolata%26f1%3Dau%26c1%3DAND%26ar%3Don%26wc%3Don%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D

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Cheese Consumption in the United States

Summarizing Paragraph

The two sets of data from the US Census Bureau, and USA Today mostly agree with on another. Both indicate a general trend upwards in the consumption of cheese in pounds. This general trend may be caused by the increased immigration of Hispanics into the United States of America. The general Hispanic diet included a considerable amount of cheese, causing the upward trend in the cheese consumption among Americans.

Chapter 1 - Article Reveiw - Constructivism

Article Research and Review -----


Constructivism (a.k.a. new math) is a theory that math should be learned by making computation seem real. This theory favors using the senses -- touch and feel -- as learning aids over learning unsupported rules from a lecture and notes. It is a way to get students more involved in their learning, so that material may stick with them. In "How to End Math Wars" by Claudia Wallis constructivism is seen as a good teaching method that is very hard to introduce into schools, because of the amount of teaching that instructors have to go through in order to teach children. The integration of this new theory into schools has created mass chaos, and has made schools revert to old lecture type math, which as viewed by the author will make kids hate math. Also in the article, "The Trials of New Math" almost the same view is presented. New math is a good thing yet making sure instructors know how to teach it is a whole other story. The main point is new math is good only when it is taught correctly, otherwise, it is best to use old math.
Constructivism seems to be an over done way to learn simple things. “We're in danger of raising a generation of kids who can't do computational arithmetic,"[1] says Max Beberman, the Illinois professor who strongly is against the constructivist theory. This new math seems to be a unusual way of teaching math, when all over the world people are learning it the “old math” way: lectures and notes. Since China and Korea are teaching their students one way and they are scoring higher on math and science tests than ever before. It seems useless to make learning more interactive when there is one end goal and that is to learn the facts. Why should it matter which way it is done as long as the facts are learned?

The new math puts a lot of stress on the people teaching it. “The hazard in teaching new math is that its basic concepts—sets, number systems not based on ten, lattices—require profound comprehension by teachers, which usually entails plenty of upgrading study.”[2] Teachers that are under qualified to teach by constructivism methods have to be pulled out of their jobs and taught the specific way of the theory. This puts a strain on the already low number of teachers and their pay is most likely not provided during training periods, because of the dwindling budgets of most school districts. New math has too many requirements before it is taught meaning there is too much of a hassle to teach by constructivism.

Educated persons claim that if children are taught the old math way, “Kids will learn their times tables for sure, but they'll also learn to hate math.”[3] I was taught the “old math” way which includes memorizing formulas to use them. No one in my school district learned the fluffy way: if you have nineteen cookies and three cookies, what number do you get if you put them together. The way all of us were taught was: What is the sum of nineteen and three? I personally love this lecture way of teaching math. It allows me to be still, listen, and take notes on something I enjoy. I may be one in a million, but before we even started introducing new math into the school systems wasn’t everything in balance?

Old Math seems to give the student more responsibility inside and outside of the classroom to learn the information given in a lecture. “In a Berkeley (Angelo, 1991) study on undergraduates in a large lecture hall setting, it was found that only 20 % of the students retained what the instructor discussed after the lecture. They were too busy taking notes to internalize the information. Also, after a lecture passed eight minutes, only 15 % of the students are paying attention.”[4] It seems that this study shows that students are not responding to the lectures that professors are giving. These statistics imply less students value what they are meant to learn in a certain class. It seems that new math is a way for educators to get around the students not taking responsibility for their education through the old math teachings.

In short, I think that old math is better than new math. Old Math allows students to take more responsibility for their learning. Teaching the old math way does not necessarily mean that students will hate math, and it is a good way to get into “raw” math without having any fluff of how many cookies there are. Old Math should be taught in

Footnotes:

[1] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940873-1,00.html
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940873-1,00.html
[3]http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561144-2,00.html
[4] http://www.inform.umd.edu/UMS+State/UMD-Projects/MCTP/Essays/Constructivism.txt

"Social Questions"

“Social questions” are questions that are too big to be answered in a simple Google search or some quick calculus. These questions are questions that plague the world, and their answers would affect many different facets of the world such as the economy, social class, or the ozone layer just to name a few. All these questions surprisingly have mathematical answers that may not be apparent at first. These large scale questions would affect the whole world’s population and way of life if their many different solutions were reached and put into action.

Pose three original social questions (to be answered later).

1. When will world hunger be cured?
2. When will mass murders in the world stop happening?
3. How long will it take the ozone layer to completely disappear?

Just Checking This Thing Out!

Well, I have never blogged before, and I would like to test out posting a blog before. I have to put my assignment for tomorrow's class up here.