First Post

(this is a picture of Adam at the St. Louis Library before I met him)

Current Trends in Math and Science Education

In the years following the No Child Left Behind act, there has been an increased focus on setting standards for education.  The act solidified the need for each state to “develop its own academic standards of achievement for what every student must know in mathematics and science” (Learning Point Associates, 2007).  This need was taken to another level in recent years as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative has gained a foothold in the education world.  The initiative seeks to ensure that all students in the country are held to a consistent standard across the board and “address[es] the fact that literacy demands in college, the workplace, and life in general are getting higher, not lower” (Powers, 2013). As of 2014, most states have adopted the Common Core standards. 

Change in Standards Policy

            This change in standards and educational policy has a great effect on the way that science and mathematics are being taught in the country and how the effectiveness of that teaching is being assessed at a national level.  Even at a basic, everyday teaching level, CCSS have changed the way that math is being taught to young students.  Schools in Indiana are going through a transitional process of changing the way they teach addition.  Where they used to teach addition using the standard algorithm (numbers on top of one another and working one’s way from right to left), now students are learning addition “a different way, called regrouping. Instead of putting 243 on top of 162, the numbers are pulled apart and written next to each other: 200 plus 100, 40 plus 60, 3 plus 2” (Moxley, 2013).

Changes in Science

             Science education is seeing its fair share of possible changes as well.   In Cincinnati, Ohio, there is currently a debate over whether the broad language of the CCSS would provide some schools a loophole to teach Creationism (or Intelligent Design).  Opponents of the bill to adopt the CCSS believe that the current Ohio state standards for science education make it much clearer in the language that science classrooms shall only teach evolution.  The worry is that schools will be under pressure from religious communities to teach creationism in schools, that “some will be tempted to push the limits and teach creationism. If they do, they’ll get sued over it” (Brown, 2014). 

            There are many changes occurring across the country in state standards as more and more state boards of education adopt the CCSS. Students who are learning science and math in a second grade classroom are potentially learning at a very different speed and using very different processes than their peers who are just a few years older than them.  The effects of these changes have yet to take shape, but we are bound to see a ripple effect in the college landscape and the professional world in the years and decades to come.

Here's a List:

• I like pie
• I like ice cream
• I like learning new stuff

This has been really fun.  But you know I think I need another list.

1. I'm having a baby.
2. Her name is Isabella
3. She's all I can think about.

And here is a cool quote:

"It's probably not a good idea to be chewing on a toothpick if you're talking to the president, because what if he tells a funny joke and you laugh so hard you spit the toothpick out and it hits him in the face or something."