National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments

Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007

(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

Date Author Subject

My Reactions to the Continuing

May 31, 2007 Shacter, John
Math Panel Deliberations
Transform Education - Use
May 18, 2007 Doore, Stanley Virtual Schools and Student
Centered Learning
My Reactions to the Continuing
May 18, 2007 Shacter, John
Math Panel Deliberations

May 01, 2007 McLoughlin, Padraig ADA

High Quality Professional

April 24, 2007 Schell, Tim
Development

April 22, 2007 Kalb, Kris (no subject)

1
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: John Shacter [mailto:jsplg@comcast.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 2:09 AM
To: Graban, Jennifer
Subject: My Reactions to the Continuing Math Panel Deliberations

Hi again Jennifer -

As you know from my prior messages to the National Math Panel -- when I list main
institutional causes of our failing educational system -- including but not limited to math --
I generally list colleges of education at or near the top.

The following sentences refer to an item which was published today.

As you may know, Arthur Levine has recently resigned from his position as president of
Columbia U.'s Teacher College.

The results of his comprehensive study on the effectiveness of this nation's teacher and
leadership training, as well as in research, have been announced today.

You can get reports which summarize his findings from the Goldwater Institute or the
American Daily of Phoenix, AZ.
(http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/ArticleView.aspx?id=1597)

Levine makes drastic suggestions for a sweeping recasting of teacher and leadership
training in the U.S.

So much for the charge by the Administration to the National Math Panel to base their
work on "research-based" evidence.

Whose research and which evidence?

As I have asked before, are these "experts" willing to prove themselves by demonstrating
their effectiveness in a real public-school classroom?

As you know, I have spent a number of years doing so. This would be the only real-life
demonstration of relative teaching effectiveness -- namely student gains in two randomly
split classes of students -- say in the crucial elementary or middle-school grades.
I also feel that the public and professionals have been totally misled about the supposed
benefits of ever-smaller classes. So I would be willing to take on a much large group and
compete with the expert's or professor's much smaller group.

In any case, you'll have to forgive me if I do not expect much more from this panel than
from the many past ones on all kinds of subjects, including math. Naturally, I hope that
they will prove me wrong.

Please send copies of this to the members of the National Math Panel.

Cordially - John

2
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

3
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: STANLEY DOORE [mailto:stan.doore@verizon.net]
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 7:23 AM
To: National Math Panel
Subject: Transform Education - Use Virtual Schools and Student Centered Learning

Dear National Math Panel Members:

Attached are my recommendations on "Transformation of Education - Use Virtual Schools

and Student Centered Learning." They involve the use of inexpensive interactive video
platforms and current technologies to fulfill Florida's Virtual School motto: "Any Time, Any
Place, Any Path, Any Pace"

You should include these recommendations in your recommendations.

I look forward to hearing that you have included these recommendations in your report to the
President of the United States.

Regards,

Stan@doore.net email

"070518_NMP
Transform Education - Use Virtual Schools PDF.pdf"

4
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: John Shacter [mailto:jsplg@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 2:24 AM
To: Graban, Jennifer
Subject: My Reactions to the Continuing Math Panel Deliberations

Hi Jennifer - Thanks for your announcement.

Please forward the following comment to the panel members and also to the Secretary of
Education and her staff:

I believe that anyone who advises the leaders and citizens of our nation how to teach
math (or any other subject) most effectively should have to demonstrate his or her
own ability to teach basic and applied math to various age groups, say ranging
somewhere from the elementary grades to the high-school grades.

I know a few of the members of this panel and their advisors in the colleges of education,
etc., and I would enjoy competing with any of them as both of us would demonstrate our
(above) abilities under actual classroom conditions. In fact, I offered to teach 30 students
and agree to let them teach only 15 students, with the two groups being randomly
divided. No one on the panel or associated with their deliberations has reacted either to
my past suggestions or to this competitive or comparative experiment.

(By the way, I am about ready to conclude that many of our professors in our teacher
colleges are themselves part of the educational problems and setbacks in education. This
may well start with their regrettable and often misapplied beliefs that "we are not primarily
teaching subjects -- we are teaching each whole, individual child.")

So rather than wasting my time trying to repeat my so far ignored suggestions of

the past, let me just offer to review the panel's draft report prior to issue, if the
panel would like me to do that on a confidential basis.

Alternatively, I shall wait until the final report is issued and forward my reactions to
the Secretary and to any interested panel member at that point.

With best wishes to the panel and you and your associates -

Cordially, John

John Shacter
Semi-retired engineer and management consultant, and still very active volunteer-teacher
in the public schools and (most recently) some groups of home-schoolers along with
some parents.
More background info. in the Who's Who volumes on Science & Engineering or on
Finance & Business.

5
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: mcloughl@kutztown.edu [mailto:mcloughl@kutztown.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 4:05 PM
To: National Math Panel
Subject: ADA

To Whom It May Concern:

Does the ADA require accommodation for 'math anxiety' and, if so, what accommodation is
required?

Thank you,

Dr. Padraig McLoughlin

Department of Mathematics
Kutztown University

6
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: Schell, Tim [mailto:tschell@waunakee.k12.wi.us]
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 12:35 AM
To: National Math Panel
Subject: High Quality Professional Development

At the Friday morning open session at IMSA in Aurora, Illinois, Diane Jones posed the question
on what constituted high quality professional development. To my knowledge, the best research
on this question was carried out by Michael Garet, Andrew Porter, Laura Desimone, and their
colleagues. Their work could be particularly pertinent because it was part of a national evaluation
of the Eisenhower Professional Development Program for mathematics and science teachers.

A quick summary of their findings is that high quality professional development is characterized
by activities that are sustained, content specific, promote active learning, are coherent or aligned
with instructional practice, and are collective or cohort based. I have attached one of their papers
so you may have a more complete representation of their research and analysis.

Andew Porter and Laura Desimone are both at Vanderbilt currently, and I believe Michael Garet is
still at AIR.

Your work is vitally important to the future of mathematics education in our nation. Your scope is
much broader than the charge for the National Reading Panel, so your task is quite demanding. I
appreciate the time and effort each of you is contributing to the work of the Panel and thank you
for your service.

Best wishes for your work over the remainder of your commission.

Timothy C. Schell
Assistant Director of Instruction
Waunakee Community School District
Committed to Children, Committed to Community, Committed to Excellence
101 School Drive
Waunakee, WI 53597

"070424garet
aerj.pdf"

7
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)

-----Original Message-----
From: Kris Kalb [mailto:kriskalb@patmedia.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 9:10 PM
To: National Math Panel
Subject: (no subject)

I am an elementary math teacher at Barley Sheaf School in Flemington, NJ. I have taught
elementary mathematics for the past 15 years.

I wish to offer a response to the following paragraph from the National Mathematics Advisory
Panel’s Preliminary Report January 2007: “The discussion about math skills has persisted for
many decades. One aspect of the debate is over how explicitly children must be taught skills
based on formulas or algorithms (fixed step by step procedures for solving math problems)
versus a more inquiry-based approach in which students are exposed to real-world problems that
help them develop fluency in number sense, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. In this latter
approach, computational skills and correct answers are not the primary goals of instruction.”

It is my sincere hope that the distinguished members of the Advisory Panel will consult with some
of the authors and resource books I quote below and come to the realization that skill instruction
versus inquiry based instruction in mathematics is not a choice between two opposite and
conflicting ways of thinking, but rather two instructional approaches that are interconnected and
dependent upon each other. Both instructional approaches have as their main goal correct
answers.

John A. Van De Walle wrote in his book /_Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching
Developmentally_/: “In spite of our beliefs that understanding and skills can and should develop
together, we must make it clear that we assume the primary goal of mathematics instructions is
conceptual understanding. But we must also make it clear that setting conceptual understanding,
as the primary goal does not mean ignoring computation skills. In fact, we have found that
instruction for understanding can help students construct skills that can be recalled when needed
and be adjusted to fit new situations. Most, if not all, important mathematics concepts and
procedures can best be taught through problem solving.”(p 36)

Marilyn Burns writes in her book /_About Teaching Mathematics: A K-8 Resource Book_/: “If
teaching computation skills by starting with numerical symbols is a backward approach, the
traditional sequence of teaching computation first and then applying those skills to problem
situations is just as backward. It doesn’t make sense to teach arithmetic skills in isolation from
situations for which those skills are needed. As supported by research findings, this pedagogical
version of putting the cart before the horse doesn’t work.” (p12)

Karen C. Fuson writes in Chapter 6_: Developing Mathematical Power in Whole Number
Operations/ /_from /_A Research Companion to Principles and Standards for School
Mathematics:_/ “For many years, researchers have contrasted conceptual and procedural
aspects of learning mathematics debating which aspect should come first. Recent research,
however, portrays a more complex relationship between these conceptual and procedural
aspects, concluding that they are continually intertwined and potentially facilitate each other.
These conceptual and procedural interconnections are forged in individual ways, and attempts to
distinguish between them may not even be useful, because doing and understanding are always
intertwined in complex ways.” (p. 68)

Dolores D. Pesek and David Kirshner write in their article /_Interference of Instrumental
Instruction in Subsequent Relational Learning_/ (JRME 2000); ”Initial rote learning of a concept
can create interference to later meaningful learning.”

8
 National Math Panel Emailed Public Comments
Chicago – Miami Meeting: April 19, 2007 – June 4, 2007
(The following emails appear in reverse chronological order from June to April 2007.)
Other educators who have written extensively about constructivism in teaching mathematics are

Cathy Fosnot: /_Young Mathematicians at Work_/

Constance Kamii: /_Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic_/

Susan Jo Russell: /_ Beyond Arithmetic: Changing Mathematics in the

Elementary Classroom_/

In her article “Teaching Fractions: Fostering children’s Own Reasoning” Kamii discusses Piaget’s
fundamental distinctions among three kinds of knowledge: physical, social (or conventional) and
logicomathematical knowledge. Since logicomathematical knowledge develops out of children’s
own mental actions, they need opportunities to struggle to invent solutions because it is this
thinking that helps them construct new relationships. Kamii has presented data proving that
algorithms are harmful to the development of children’s numerical thinking.

Social knowledge or conventions need to be introduced (told by the teacher) such as the meaning
of symbols, and vocabulary such as geometry terminology. When planning lessons, teachers
need to ask not only what the content of the curriculum is, but also: where does this knowledge
come from? If the purpose is to introduce a lot of vocabulary (social knowledge) use the word
wall, teach by telling. If the purpose of the lesson is to help students understand that addition is
the total sum of the parts, they need to have experiences that will let them construct this
understanding inside their own brains.

The questions is not whether to teach skills or inquiry based lessons, but rather what kind of
thinking will the students be expected to use, and plan lessons accordingly. The correct answer is
always the goal, no matter if the lesson focuses on skills and algorithms or problem solving,
reasoning and sense making.

Thank you,

Kristina S. Kalb