So many people have asked me about the US “math wars” during my recent visit, that I thought I’d comment in a blog, rather than repeat myself over and over again. Briefing for those not in the US: there is open warfare between “reformers” and “non-reformers” of math education. The latest round is ostensibly over whether “data science” should be accepted as an alternative to traditional subjects like “algebra II” for admission to top colleges.
Read MoreFor once I'm not talking about the contents of school maths but the name and its associations.
The question I'm asking is if our core technical subject wasn't termed "maths" but "nicebrand" would things go better in and out of education?
Sadly, I've started to conclude the answer is yes. I now suspect that using the brand of maths is damaging core technical education, its reform, and efforts to equip society for the AI age.
Believe me, this is not the conclusion I want. I've spent years of my life somehow connected with the word "maths". But much as I might not like my conclusion, I want the essence of subject maths to succeed; so I don't want the name to kill the subject—a much worse outcome.
Read MoreCentral to our mission at computerbasedmath.org is thinking through from first principles what's important and what's not to the application of maths in the real, modern, computer-based world. This is one of the most challenging aspects of our project: it's very hard to shake off the dogma of our own maths education and tell whether something is for now and the future, or if really it's for the history of maths.
This week's issue is significance arithmetic, similar to what you might know from school as significant figures. The idea is when you do a calculation not just a single value but bounds that represent the uncertainty of your calculation too are calculated. You can get an idea of how accurate your answer is or indeed if it has any digits of accuracy at all.
Read MoreToday's maths PISA results are predictable in the successes that many Asian countries show and the mediocrity of many of the traditional Western countries--like the UK.
I believe PISA is meticulous in conducting its tests and reflects a good evaluation of standards of today's maths education. And yet I think if countries like the UK simply try to climb up today's PISA assessment, they'd be doing the wrong thing.
Read MoreI was debating Computer-Based Maths education (CBM) with a sceptic before the summer and he brought up the analogy of music education to support various claims he was making of maths.
As I understood his central point it was that practising hand calculations is akin to practising music pieces--it's simply the way to learn to play. Also there was some attempt to draw the analogy between listening to music and CBM, whereas playing was like traditional hand-calculating maths.
Read MoreI'm very excited to announce that computerbasedmath.org has found the first country ready for our completely new kind of maths education: it's Estonia. (...and here's the press release).
I thought Estonia could be first. They are very active on using technology (first to publish cabinet decisions immediately online, first to include programming in their mainstream curriculum), have ambition to improve their (already well respected) STEM aptitude and lack the dogma and resistance to change of many larger countries. There aren't so many countries with all those characteristics.
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