For those of you who use this curriculum, I am wondering what you do to combat parent protest of it's use?
We looked again at our math practice this year, and consulted with a university math expert, who agreed that with our school philosophy and the children who attend our school that this is the best curriculum for us. I also really like it and support it, though know there is a lot on the web that parents can read about why it is "bad." (some of you may think the same thing.)
Any tips? I am expecting a bit of a backlash. We used the old program before, but only in 2-5th grade, as the primary teachers did something else. Now we are using it school wide. Thanks!
I was one of the first to begin the program...I was the only class and then they began all classes, and trickled down. This was 7 years ago? I can't remember. You will have to supplement for some skills. But, I love the way the kids think...after a while. It will not come so easily the first year, but the next kids you get (who have done it the previous year...will "think" more like mathematicians. Our county bought everyday calendar math to help with some of the basic "holes"....
I used to have a slide in my power point presentation for Open House or Math Night. About New math vs Old Math...I'll look for it...We had a math night for parents to attend and complete a lesson in each grade.
Something that really helped me are my Math Sourcebooks (a composition notebook) I tell parents at Open House, this is their lifeline since there is no textbook...We write all kind of notes, etc. Sometimes, when I teach a game, 4th grade, close to 100...I have the kids cut and paste the directions in the SOurcebook and have them play it for homework.
The Sourcebook is similar to mini offices in one section...I use the post it sticky dividers to divide the composition book into 2 sections...One tab word work (math vocab...kid and parent friendly definitions) and one tab strategies and solutions to problems...
During the 4th grade book...Money, Miles and large numbers, the kids cut and glued clocks in...conversion charts..
Some teachers chose to use 1 day of the week as a skills week....
My district used Investigations for six years and adopted a more traditional program for this year. I really enjoyed the lessons as they were more conceptually-based and the kids were amazing.
However, there were a couple of difficult years in the beginning with the shift of thinking, particularly with the older students (they were used to doing things a different way).
The parent group who started complaining in the district became just a handful of disgruntled parents in the end. The were very vocal and said that our kids could not do basic math facts. Well, Investigations (first version, anyway) really does not focus on facts. If you are looking for worksheets, drills, etc., it was not there. We began a whole program for documenting and each teacher received supplemental materials from the district to cover teaching basic facts. I think most teachers will tell you there is not a perfect program for teaching anything and there will always be kiddos who struggle learning basic facts.
We read a couple of staff development books that were awesome in explaining rationale behind conceptual-based programs in math.
One is called So, You Have to Teach Math by Marilyn Burns
It has question-answer format, addresses parent concerns, etc.
The other book is called Knowing and Teaching Mathematics by Liping Ma. It compares teachers' understanding of math in the U.S. and China.
I should also say our school organized math meetings and demonstrated lessons for parents and really tried to keep them informed.
I am assuming your district adopted the second version of Investigations which incorporates more fact practice.
Good luck and feel free to PM me.
We had a lot of parent protest this year,interestingly enough from First grade parents who wanted to see more "papers" and harder computation. And the big question was always "Why go through all this explaining and writing and...thinking..." Why can't they just DO it and use algorithms". I have to say sometimes I wonder about it myself. We have uses Investigations for many years but the 2008 version is quite a bit different. We have a new teacher who is so energetic and she put together a math night. She developed a powerpoint and we played the math games and explained a lot of the program. Only a handful of the protesters showed up but at least we can say that we did our best to answer the questions.
This year with the 2008 program we were told NOT to supplement. This was hard. I do love Investigations but their timeline and presentation does NOT line up with our NeCap testing. And it is a huge amount of work.This year I am going through our states GE's and focusing on the lessons that address them and skipping a lot of the additional lessons.
There ARE textbooks with the new Investigations as well as ginormous workbooks. All at a hefty price.
Last edited by pm; 07-12-2008 at 04:36 AM..
Reason: wrong year
I just started using Investigations last year. I did like the conceptual aspect of it a lot. However, like some of the pp said, it is weak on math facts and skills. I can honestly understand where some of the parents concerns are coming from. To supplement, I did a 20-25 minute skill block everyday (the skill would correlate with what we did in the Investigations lesson). I aslo designated about 10 minutes a day for practicing and studying math facts. That seemed to make the parents and myself feel more comfortable with the program.
We also did Investigations this year for the first year. The parents didn't complain at all. But then they rarely do where I teach. Teachers were really hesitant though. I loved it.
What worked for me was explaining that i was teaching the kids to think about numbers the way that I thought about numbers as a grown-up. Becoming more fascile with numbers in a way that really will improve thier practical math ability as well as the number sense that will support higher math. The new edition in primary does try to give more strategies for basic facts and even my kids are pretty quick with them, despite the fact that I didn't supplement.
I hosted a parent night. I didn't do a grade level night, just one for parents in my class. I made packets that gave the rules for the games, materials needed, the math behind the game, and what I was looking for. Then I made the parents play the games! It was great. They understood that I was teaching thinking rather than procedure which is SO IMPORTANT!!!
The packet included materials they may need at home. I asked them to please not play the games at home until I had introduced them at school. Once they were introduced, they were free to play at home. They really liked that they had the materials, etc... to play the games with the kids at home. I think they realized they'd much rather do that than fight with kids about work sheets.
My school bought the Today's Math workbooks printed by Scott Foresman. It's a good companion to Investigations. I have no info about the new Investigations, however...
BoSox, the Parent night sounds wonderful. I have taught Investigations for the last two years and except for having to "fill in the holes", I loved it. Years ago though, when my own children were first introduced to Investigations - I was not so happy. Unlike BoSox, my children's teachers did NOT send information home to us so that we could play the games and help with the home assignments. When you have little Kinder and First graders, they don't always remember what the instructions were - and I was at a loss! I wish that they had hosted a Parent night. I'm sure that there would have been fewer complaints from parents.
07-12-2008, 01:06 AM
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