With friends like Andrew Hacker, does this country need enemies?
On the other hand, perhaps we can take this as an opportunity to discuss the accessibility of math education, the level of engagement and hands-on examples that teaching materials give, and how this can be improved with modern teaching aids (tablets). I know I certainly struggled with engineering-grade math in college (math was one of my majors, but not a favorite one), and I blame the combination of my laziness, poor professors (rewarded for publications, not teaching), and poor teaching materials (far removed from practicality).
I'm really excited by how much better kids' aptitude and quantitative cognitive skills will improve over the coming years for the ones who have access to tablets. New apps are popping up that make learning elementary math a joy... apps that can keep a kid's attention without adult help - starting at age 4. This will be a serious boost to whichever nations/groups emphasize it.
> I'm really excited by how much better kids' aptitude and quantitative cognitive skills
> will improve over the coming years for the ones who have access to tablets.
I say we will see zero improvement caused by tablets (or any other technology of this kind).
This is not a technological problem it cannot and wont be solved by technology. Technology might aid
a tiny bit with it, but just that.
This is much more complicated. Technology may add a lot, not just a tiny bit, but it has to be used in such way. While certainly apps are being created [and soon they may reach much harder topics, like indefinite integrals] the core issue is in using them - there is no point in technology alone if it is not used. It depends heavily on parents so that they can enable and encourage children to use the app but it also depends on children to use [or rather play] the app.
Technology is not solution to the problem per se - Technology only enables us to solve the problem.
I agree completely with the first part. The tablets, not so much. Perhaps they will just be using more apps like imgfave. I don't think the issue is tools or needing things like Khan Academy or anything like that. I think it is a combination of the cultural view of education, the educational, social, and economic status of those teaching, and, perhaps most importantly, parental engagement.
There are a lot of cultural issues at play here. Children aren't born afraid of math. It's not a coincidence that hundreds of years ago educated people tended to be polymaths (if not experts in many fields).
Are we likely to fix all these issues anytime soon? I fear probably not. But we don't have to go backwards.
With friends like Andrew Hacker, does this country need enemies?
On the other hand, perhaps we can take this as an opportunity to discuss the accessibility of math education, the level of engagement and hands-on examples that teaching materials give, and how this can be improved with modern teaching aids (tablets). I know I certainly struggled with engineering-grade math in college (math was one of my majors, but not a favorite one), and I blame the combination of my laziness, poor professors (rewarded for publications, not teaching), and poor teaching materials (far removed from practicality).
I'm really excited by how much better kids' aptitude and quantitative cognitive skills will improve over the coming years for the ones who have access to tablets. New apps are popping up that make learning elementary math a joy... apps that can keep a kid's attention without adult help - starting at age 4. This will be a serious boost to whichever nations/groups emphasize it.