Week 7 DQC – EDUC 342: Child Development & New Technologies

Week 7

nhardson — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 07:32:10 +0000

I would first like to note that I found the Berkowitz reading to be fascinating. Particularly due to the success of this app and the clear demonstration that interaction with parents around math leads to math achievement. I suppose this is interesting to me because I am the daughter of a math teacher. Thus, my childhood was full of math games. I still remember looking at the Pythagorean Triangle drawn on my garage wall as a child wondering what it meant. My sister was a math major and I highly considered being one before settling on Symbolic Systems. It is clear to me that the engagement I had with my mom around math at home was a very significant component in my math achievement. I suppose I wonder how can we expand apps like this so that young children who do not have parents who are comfortable with math can gain the necessary engagement to improve their math skills. Particularly I wonder how do we change the mindset around math in the home to be more like that of stories in the home- a necessary part of a child’s home experience. And how can we support parents so that they may better engage with their children in the home? Is their a way to provide a math app that has a component solely for parents to become more comfortable with the math, in addition to a component that allows them to engage in the material with their children?

Bedtime Books and coolmath

hgamble — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 07:56:34 +0000

I found the Berkowitz study to be interesting mainly because I find it hard that they were able to find “math” books that did not also have an effect on children’s literacy. Separating the two seems impossible to me. To Berkowitz’s point though that mathematical skills lag behind literacy due to lack of parent interaction over the subject, I tend to agree. A close friend and former room mate of mine here at Stanford, who is a brilliant mathematician, had a father who was a physicist . His dad would pay him to read “math books”, and so as a kid he read alot of math books.

I also saw this is in my own life. My dad was also an engineer and that fact allowed him to work with me on math homework in a way that my mom never would. She would get stressed out when I asked her questions, I can’t imagine how stressful and frustrating math would have been for me had my dad not been willing to engage with me and help me through my issues.

Week 7 DQC

eanders7 — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:05:32 +0000

In Breaking the Symbol Barrier Devlin compares math to piano music. Music is merely represented on paper, while it is experienced when someone plays a piano. The instrument is engaging and provides immediate feedback to the learner. Math is similarly represented on paper with symbols but experienced through mathematical thinking.

Devlin argues that Everyday Math can be more efficiently represented on devices like iPads through mathematical games. Symbolic representation is abstract and devoid of meaning for students. Devices like the iPad allow games to represent a more meaningful experience with math. Devlin believes that these games require math mathematical thinking, children learn faster, and enjoy the experience more.

While I absolutely agree that games like Wuzzit Trouble have created a much more engaging and meaningful way to experience algebra I wonder, when do students make the transition into symbolic math to master higher level math (which Devlin does not believe can be well represented through iPad games)? If we transitioned to teaching all Everyday Math skills using games like Wuzzit Trouble, would some children never encounter symbolic math? Would equity issues in tracking students into higher level symbolic math courses arise?

Week 7: Math

ccolgan — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 17:34:43 +0000

The Zhang article made me wonder how students’ interactions with online math games have changed in the age of YouTube. From Ashley’s talk last week, we learned that kids are no longer using Google to search for content. In the article, from November 2012-October 2013, 6% of traffic to coolmath-games came from social media sites including YouTube. A higher percentage of traffic is likely coming from YouTube today.

I downloaded the YouTube Kids app and searched for “Cool Math Games.” Unsurprisingly, most of the content that came back were videos of kids playing the games on the Cool Math Games website. This peculiar “watching” phenomenon is so huge, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some way to leverage watching videos of gameplay into a learning experience.

Based on the data from Zhang’s research, the kids that are searching for this content are among the lowest performing. Is there a way to connect them with the help they need? Perhaps a new study (based on the data that YouTube has on its users) could link those interested in coolmath-games with a program to encourage families working together on math problems at home, the very beneficial practice discussed in the Berkowitz et al. article, and could compare the achievement of those with and without this intervention.