Confused by your kid’s math homework? Here’s how it all adds up | Parenting - The Washington Post

This story about teaching math was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. 

Caralee Adams, Author at The Hechinger Report says, Elementary students are taught math in ways that can make parents’ heads spin, but there are good reasons for the new methods.

Student work posted in an elementary school before the pandemic shows the “partial product” method of solving a multiplication problem, one of many methods students have learned with Common Core

Photo: Jackie Mader/Hechinger Report 

Allonda Hawkins said the way her children are expected to do math is “100 percent different” from the way she learned.

“There are terms that I’ve never heard before, like arrays. It’s very foreign to me and it’s hard to teach,” said the 38-year-old real estate agent from Winston-Salem, N.C.

The mother of four children, ages 5 to 11, often turns to YouTube for explanations and recruits her fifth-grader to help the younger children. Hawkins said she’s catching on more now that she can eavesdrop on her kids’ online classes, but she still is frustrated that she doesn’t have more guidance.

Parents across the country are getting an up-close look at math instruction — and, like Hawkins, they don’t always know what to make of it. But with about half of American kids still learning at home as of Feb. 21 (either all virtually or in hybrid programs), it’s time for parents to get up to speed...

The new approach is actually not all that new. It’s grounded in research going back more than 30 years and is reflected in the Common Core State Standards, which are used in 41 states. (And most states now follow standards with the same principles, even if they don’t call them Common Core.) Instead of memorizing procedures to solve problems, kids are asked to think through various ways to arrive at an answer and then explain their strategies. While some parents believe these methods are just a more complicated way of teaching math, they are designed to promote a deeper understanding of the subject and help students make lasting connections.

“There’s not just one way to solve a problem,” said Megan Burton, president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators and associate professor of elementary education at Auburn University in Alabama. To fully grasp deeper mathematical concepts, “students need to think about what makes sense and build on what they learn.”

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Source: The Washington Post