Spin-off thread: TERC Investigations

[Breann in WA]

I had never heard of Investigations before, but I'm pretty sure this is what dc's school has just started using.

At our parent info night, dd's 2nd grade teacher briefly described as an example a number line system of subtraction that had the roomful of parents wearing furrowed brows with their heads cocked to one side. I had trouble following it and I'm pretty sure dd who has been brought up at home on Saxon will have trouble showing her work as it pertains to this, just as you all mentioned in the Everyday Math thread.

After trying to explain this technique to the parents, dd's teacher asked us to please, please not teach them the "old" math ways of regrouping. :001_huh:

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear any and all experiences with Investigations (go ahead, the good and the bad!) as we are new to it only 3 weeks ago.

[Violet]

I had never heard of Investigations before, but I'm pretty sure this is what dc's school has just started using.

At our parent info night, dd's 2nd grade teacher briefly described as an example a number line system of subtraction that had the roomful of parents wearing furrowed brows with their heads cocked to one side. I had trouble following it and I'm pretty sure dd who has been brought up at home on Saxon will have trouble showing her work as it pertains to this, just as you all mentioned in the Everyday Math thread.

After trying to explain this technique to the parents, dd's teacher asked us to please, please not teach them the "old" math ways of regrouping. :001_huh:

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear any and all experiences with Investigations (go ahead, the good and the bad!) as we are new to it only 3 weeks ago.

When my kids were in public school, this is what the district used. The district had spent a fortune on this curriculum. After some years, I think they realized it was a bust, but they still kept it. Only now they add drill to it. It's got awful reviews online if you google it. If my kids were using this program, I would supplement them with Singapore Math at home. I just remember my dd, who at the time was in third grade, doing some very odd things for homework. She spent an inordinate amount of time cutting out strips of paper for example. I have no idea what they were doing with this stuff. One of the Investigations books has tons of pages of maps in it. :001_huh: From what I've heard, Investigations is worse than Everyday Math.

Good luck to you! You'll need it. :tongue_smilie:

Anita

[Breann in WA]

From what I've heard, Investigations is worse than Everyday Math.

Good luck to you! You'll need it. :tongue_smilie:



Aaak! Great. :rolleyes: I most certainly will continue to "supplement". (I say it that way because I consider what they learn in public school to be the supplement to what they've been learning at home for years.)

I'm afraid, but I think I will Google Investigations. I've been to their website already and it was quite unhelpful.

Thanks.

[Breann in WA]

Cross-post from the Everyday Math thread:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kinsa http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=545545#post545545)
I thought I would post this link, since it pertains to the topic at hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI


OMG! I'm completely floored by this video! The quote from Everyday Math's teacher's manual about how learning the long division algorithm is a waste of time because quotients can be more efficiently found with a calculator is SO over the top I can't believe educators are buying this.

I'm not entirely sure dc's school is using TERC Investigations, but now I'm praying it's a different curriculum called "Investigations"! (What are the chances?)

Anyone with questions about TERC or EM should check out this link.

[tracywag]

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear any and all experiences with Investigations (go ahead, the good and the bad!) as we are new to it only 3 weeks ago.

My district uses this, and have added some drills to it. It has killed any joy of math in my GR 5th daughter, she gave up after several years of getting marked down when she had the correct answer but didn't do their dance. Now she makes an educated guess at what they're asking for, with no actual effort put towards working out the answer. I am adding in number games at home. I am hoping to make that part of her click again, without having anything to do with school. I've never one math work with her at home, since her grades are good and she had this little engineering type brain from birth (like her dad). I watched her try to do a worksheet last week (the only math homework I've seen) and it was painful.

With my two youngers (age 7 and 4) I will not let it slip to this. The baby is numerically minded, the middle just makes her way with whatever she is given.

I'm starting to get paranoid now about the fact that I have never seen homework or texts. Could it be they are trying to avoid having a parental revolt?

Tracy

[Mallorie]

After trying to explain this technique to the parents, dd's teacher asked us to please, please not teach them the "old" math ways of regrouping.


Did she cite reasons for this? This is one request that I would have no problem disregarding, and I encourage ALL parents of kids using these programs to do the same.


I'm starting to get paranoid now about the fact that I have never seen homework or texts. Could it be they are trying to avoid having a parental revolt?


I so very rarely saw math homework for my son. I think that is why it took me so long to catch on to what was happening.

tracywag, my son was there, I know how you and your dd feel, and it's difficult. My son lost interest in so many things, not just math. We're getting it back, but it's hard work. This spring was a rough time in our house, watching him struggle-not only with the math, but with the fact that he worried about whether or not he was at the same level as his peers. It was a major blow to his self-esteem. :(

Just keep doing what you have to do to get her up to speed.

[Breann in WA]

No, she didn't cite any reasons. I just assumed that it's because the "old" way will confuse them when trying to learn the "new" way. And I do intend to keep teaching it - it's too late anyway, that's how dd adds and subtracts 2-digit numbers already (dimes and pennies per Saxon Math).

I think the more strategies she has to help her solve problems, the better - More tools in her toolbox. But when it comes time that she's losing points even when getting the correct answer, I may get up at arms. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I think I heard that our school is piloting TERC this year, so I suppose now is the time to get up at arms and be heard. *sigh* A mother's work is never done. ;)

[saw]

our local school used TERC. We ran as far as we could in the opposite direction and ended up in Europe.

Seriously though I've heard it can be good if done very well by teachers who are experienced and know what they're doing.

I would supplement and teach them proper math.

[Brenda in MA]

I don't usually frequent this board because my kiddos are hsed, but I happened to see this topic on the main page of boards and I had to comment.

Investigations was one of the major reasons we started hsing my then 5th grader 8 years ago. Our school district switched to the program when he was in the 3rd grade. It is very non-traditional, and IMHO really hinders kids' basic understanding of math. My son was lost after two years with this. At 9 yo, he lacked basic mathematical knowledge like what an even number vs. an odd number is.

Fast forward eight years later with a more traditional approach with math, and he is scoring very well on his college entrance exams for math. It's not that he couldn't learn math, it's that Investigations just doesn't teach it in a way that helps the child to appreciate the beauty of math. I wouldn't buy for a minute their insistence on not teaching the traditional algorithms of math. I think you need to teach both the why and the algorithms. Singapore Math is a great curriculum for teaching the why, IMHO. My now 7th grader completed the Signapore PM series and has an excellent foundational understanding of math.

If you want to read more, check out www.mathematicallycorrect.com. Scroll down a ways and click on Program Reviews and Information. They have reviews of the 2nd & 5th grade Investigations listed under Dale Seymour.

After the first couple of years of Investigations at ps, the standardized test scores didn't show any improvement and went down a little. The administrators decided to stick with the program because they said students needed more time with it before they would see results.

After using the program for about 5 years, the local school district realized that the standardized test math scores were horrible and still falling, and they couldn't ignore the bad results any longer. They abandoned it about two years ago. I don't know what they're using now, but it has to be better than Investigations.

Sorry to be so negative about this program, but I really think it stinks!
Brenda

[Breann in WA]

Sorry to be so negative about this program, but I really think it stinks!
Brenda


I appreciate everyone's honesty here. What if I had never learned about this program and continued on thinking my children were getting the usual substandard ps education?! Now I know they're not even getting that and that my instruction at home is more important than ever. ;)

Since this thread began, I've stepped up our Saxon Math instruction to 5 days a week rather than 3 (we were alternating our short homeschooling time in math and language days). I've combined writing with their history instruction at bedtime and so far they really like that. This makes me feel better.

What saddens me the most is that it's my very own dh that insists they be in ps. Were it entirely up to me, they'd be back home in a heartbeat. :(

Thanks for your input!

[JudyJudyJudy]

I also posted this on the Everyday Math thread:

Last year my family was struggling financially, so I went back to work in December and taught for 21 weeks of the school year. Boy, was it an eye opener for me!

I was teaching all subjects in sixth grade (not typical), so I was able to see the problems in all areas. My district began Connected Mathematics last year, and it is awful. It is the middle school version of TERC Investigations, which is used in elementary school. My students were frustrated with it, and so were the teachers. The teachers had to spend much of their planning time trying to learn how to teach it. The teachers also had to miss school time to go to workshops to get more training on how to teach the curriculum.

The students who are using this curriculum must "discover" their ways into doing math, including learning such skills as adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. It is all about "discovering" how to do that, and it doesn't teach algorithms. There is no mastery of anything, yet it moves slowly. The problems are tedious and time-consuming just to get to a simple answer (usually wrong, sadly).

As standardized testing time was approaching last year, we math teachers were told to toss aside the books and use the "CRCT Coach" books instead to teach "the test." (I live in Georgia.) This may sound exaggerated, but I felt unethical because I knew that I wasn't giving the kids the education that I should. I did end up teaching algorithms as much as I could, especially on days when I knew that I wouldn't be evaluated by an administrator (the administrators expected us to use the Connected Math program), but I didn't often have the time. I felt like my students and the other students in the district were being cheated. Despite teachers' and parents' complaints about the program, the district is stuck with it for seven years.

If things had worked out well during last school year, I planned to continue to work and put my son into school this year (my husband is self-employed, so my son stayed with him while I was working). However, after what I saw in school last year, I knew that I didn't want my son in that mess. It wasn't working for me, either (I have health issues that were being made worse by the school's poor air quality), so my husband and I decided that we'd do whatever we had to do to continue to homeschool.

Connected Math was a huge problem that I saw, but I saw some other problems as well. My sixth graders had poor writing skills, and I realized that it was because they had not been taught the basics. They were expected to write research papers when they didn't even have the skills to write a complete sentence properly.

On top of that, their spelling was atrocious. The kids informed me that they were told to use "Kid Spell" in elementary school. I found out that "Kid Spell" is when the kid just spells a word the way it sounds to them. The kids were not corrected, and they weren't expected to learn spelling at all. The assumption was that they would mainly use computers during their lives, so teaching spelling wasn't necessary. However, some of them spelled so poorly that Microsoft Word couldn't even offer suggestions.

I didn't mean to get off topic, but, in my experience, our schools are in serious trouble in some areas. To get back to the math issue, programs such as Everyday Math and Connected Math are sometimes called "whole math" because they are very much like "whole language." This type of program might look good in theory, but it doesn't work.

You all might find this interesting. It is a letter that was written to the U.S. Department of Education about these math programs. It was signed by over 200 people (I think there are closer to 230), mostly college math professors, but some are psychologists and superintendents of schools.

http://mathematicallycorrect.com/riley.htm