A Parenting & kids forum. ParentingBanter.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » ParentingBanter.com forum » misc.kids » General (moderated)
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old October 16th 03, 11:40 AM
chiam margalit
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

Could you please answer the following questions IF you have a child
who has entered 4th grade. It's OK for your child to be older, but I
only need information regarding 4th grade math for a client of mine.
I need responses from *every* US state as well as from overseas. I'm
looking for a wide dispersal of respondants, so if you have friends
with kids in this age group, please don't hesitate to forward this.
TIA!

What State/Province/Country do you live in?

What grade is your child(ren) currently in?

Is your child in public or private school? (Please NO homeschooling!)

Is your child in a gifted or Resource Room program?

What math Texts does your child use?

Has your child been introduced to the Stem and Leaf Plot at school?

During what grade?

Have you as a parent ever heard of a stem and leaf plot?

From where did you learn about this? At what age?

Can your child create his/her own stem and leaf plot?

Could you explain a stem and leaf plot without the text to a friend or
neighbor?

Does your school use Connected Math?



Thanks! Once I get results, I'll explain why I needed them. Right now
I can't taint the data.

Marjorie

  #2  
Old October 16th 03, 03:06 PM
Robyn Kozierok
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

In article ,
chiam margalit wrote:
Could you please answer the following questions IF you have a child
who has entered 4th grade. It's OK for your child to be older, but I
only need information regarding 4th grade math for a client of mine.
I need responses from *every* US state as well as from overseas. I'm
looking for a wide dispersal of respondants, so if you have friends
with kids in this age group, please don't hesitate to forward this.
TIA!

What State/Province/Country do you live in?


Vermont

What grade is your child(ren) currently in?


5th (subject accelerated for math)

Is your child in public or private school? (Please NO homeschooling!)


private now, but was in public for 4th grade math

Is your child in a gifted or Resource Room program?


no (but he probably would be in a gifted program if we had one)

What math Texts does your child use?


The public school he attended used Addison Wesley Scott Foresman "Math"
program for K-2. That series includes student workbooks. They used a
related program but with no workbooks for 3rd and above. I'm not
exactly sure what it is though. They also have a separate and (IMO)
excellent "problem solving curriculum" that I don't believe to
currently be a commercial product, which is used beginning in 3rd grade
to help prepare the children for the state math portfolio requirements.

Has your child been introduced to the Stem and Leaf Plot at school?

During what grade?


Yes, in 4th grade math

Have you as a parent ever heard of a stem and leaf plot?

From where did you learn about this? At what age?


Not until my son learned it (and I have a math degree, fwiw)

Can your child create his/her own stem and leaf plot?


Yes; he does not find this difficult. (But I don't think he really
appreciated the benefits of using such a chart to express data.)

Could you explain a stem and leaf plot without the text to a friend or
neighbor?


Yes

Does your school use Connected Math?


No

Oh, by the way, while they were so busy doing stem and leaf charts and
problem solving and whatnot, they didn't get to long division *at all*
during 4th grade math. My overall take on the stem and leaf charts is
that they're an odd thing to concentrate on in 4th grade (especially
at the expense of basics like long division) and that 4th graders have
little to gain from them, but that most 4th graders should have little
difficulty understanding how to make them. They're not very complicated,
just odd.

fwiw, I don't believe that our current private school teaches stem and
leaf charts in any grade (K-8). They definitely don't teach it in the
elementary division (K-5). They don't use any text book for the
elementary division math curriculum; they use their own curriculum.
They *do* teach long division

hth,

--Robyn

  #3  
Old October 16th 03, 04:18 PM
Robyn Kozierok
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

In article ,
chiam margalit wrote:

btw, you probably already know this, but stem-and-leaf plots are
listed in the NCTM standards under Data Analysis and Probability
for grades 6-8 which is why so many "newer" curricula introduce them:

"discuss and understand the correspondence between data sets
and their graphical representations, especially histograms,
stem-and-leaf plots, box plots, and scatterplots"

--Robyn

  #4  
Old October 16th 03, 05:17 PM
T68b
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

What State/Province/Country do you live in?

Texas

What grade is your child(ren) currently in?


5th, 12th

Is your child in public or private school? (Please NO homeschooling!)


public

Is your child in a gifted or Resource Room program?


5th(enrichment classes)
12th gifted

What math Texts does your child use?

I forget...can check if needed!

Has your child been introduced to the Stem and Leaf Plot at school?


No

During what grade?


Have you as a parent ever heard of a stem and leaf plot?


No....and I'm a teacher(special ed preschool and adult ems)

From where did you learn about this? At what age?

Can your child create his/her own stem and leaf plot?


dont think so--at leastnot pertaining to math!

Could you explain a stem and leaf plot without the text to a friend or
neighbor?


No

Does your school use Connected Math?


Not used as that term

Thanks!

you're welcome!

Kathi









  #5  
Old October 16th 03, 08:09 PM
Kevin Karplus
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

In article , Robyn Kozierok wrote:
Have you as a parent ever heard of a stem and leaf plot?

From where did you learn about this? At what age?


Not until my son learned it (and I have a math degree, fwiw)


I learned about stem-and-leaf plots about 1985 from Edward Tufte's
beautiful book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information".
I did NOT get stem-and-leaf plots in school or college, but I was in
theoretical math and computer science, neither of which are very
concerned with the display of data.

I routinely use stem-and-leaf plots to present histograms of grades to
my classes. I generally have to explain them the first time I use
them, as they still are not commonly known to college stuents.

They are a handy, but rather minor tool in data display. I would not
consider them an essential part of elementary education.


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

  #6  
Old October 16th 03, 09:04 PM
David desJardins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

Robyn Kozierok writes:
btw, you probably already know this, but stem-and-leaf plots are
listed in the NCTM standards under Data Analysis and Probability
for grades 6-8 which is why so many "newer" curricula introduce them:

"discuss and understand the correspondence between data sets
and their graphical representations, especially histograms,
stem-and-leaf plots, box plots, and scatterplots"


Wow, this is dumb. You couldn't possibly find a real statistician who
thinks this is an important thing to teach children at that age (or
probably any age). It's hard to imagine how this could be on the
curriculum, except that some teacher somewhere saw one and thought, "Oh,
that looks cool." The question of whether the "stem-and-leaf plot" is
actually a useful tool for children to understand statistical data
probably didn't even come up. :-(

It's also noteworthy that the text of the standard goes into some detail
about histograms, box plots, and scatterplots, explaining what they are
and what they are good for. While there's not a single word about the
"stem-and-leaf plot" except for the statement, itself. Probably they
couldn't even think of an example that it would actually be good for!

Another step backwards for several million kids. :-(

David desJardins

  #7  
Old October 16th 03, 09:05 PM
H Schinske
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Graphs and US math standards (was poll)

wrote:

btw, you probably already know this, but stem-and-leaf plots are
listed in the NCTM standards under Data Analysis and Probability
for grades 6-8 which is why so many "newer" curricula introduce them:


I was really amazed at
http://t3.preservice.org/T0210285/in...ionalgoals.htm
, which states "Although circle graphs are usually not taught by fifth grade,
as Pothier and Nickerson explain in their article titled "Our Heritage:
Learning Data-Management Skills Meaningfully", many students will still express
interest. For example, in their data analysis project on family heritage,
Nickerson found that her fifth graders "had made such good progress in their
ability to draw bar graphs" and the interest level was so high, that
introducing circle graphs did not cause any extra stress."

Now, a circle graph (I looked it up) is nothing more or less than our old
friend the pie chart. The idea that fifth-graders should have any trouble
WHATSOEVER with the idea of a pie chart is causing ME some stress! Not to
mention that they had "made such good progress" in drawing bar graphs.
AAAAAAACCCCCKKKKK!

--Helen

  #8  
Old October 16th 03, 10:01 PM
Kevin Karplus
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Graphs and US math standards (was poll)

In article , H Schinske wrote:
wrote:

btw, you probably already know this, but stem-and-leaf plots are
listed in the NCTM standards under Data Analysis and Probability
for grades 6-8 which is why so many "newer" curricula introduce them:


I was really amazed at
http://t3.preservice.org/T0210285/in...ionalgoals.htm
, which states "Although circle graphs are usually not taught by fifth grade,
as Pothier and Nickerson explain in their article titled "Our Heritage:
Learning Data-Management Skills Meaningfully", many students will still express
interest. For example, in their data analysis project on family heritage,
Nickerson found that her fifth graders "had made such good progress in their
ability to draw bar graphs" and the interest level was so high, that
introducing circle graphs did not cause any extra stress."

Now, a circle graph (I looked it up) is nothing more or less than our old
friend the pie chart. The idea that fifth-graders should have any trouble
WHATSOEVER with the idea of a pie chart is causing ME some stress! Not to
mention that they had "made such good progress" in drawing bar graphs.
AAAAAAACCCCCKKKKK!


Our school (a middling-rated public California school) starts bar
charts in kindergarten, so I would expect 5th graders to be able to
do them in their sleep.


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

  #9  
Old October 16th 03, 10:05 PM
Penny Gaines
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

chiam margalit wrote in :

Could you please answer the following questions IF you have a child
who has entered 4th grade. It's OK for your child to be older, but I
only need information regarding 4th grade math for a client of mine.
I need responses from *every* US state as well as from overseas. I'm
looking for a wide dispersal of respondants, so if you have friends
with kids in this age group, please don't hesitate to forward this.
TIA!

[snip]

Fourth grade is 9-10 yos isn't it?

--

Penny Gaines

  #10  
Old October 16th 03, 10:13 PM
Robyn Kozierok
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default POLL: Math questions regarding upper elementary school (xpost to m.k.)

In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:
In article , Robyn Kozierok wrote:
Have you as a parent ever heard of a stem and leaf plot?

From where did you learn about this? At what age?


Not until my son learned it (and I have a math degree, fwiw)


I learned about stem-and-leaf plots about 1985 from Edward Tufte's
beautiful book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information".
I did NOT get stem-and-leaf plots in school or college, but I was in
theoretical math and computer science, neither of which are very
concerned with the display of data.


My degree was theoretical ("pure") math and CS as well. But I did
have 2 (required) semesters of probability and statistics

--Robyn

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Rant: Over indulgent parents strike again Jon Walters General 1142 August 25th 05 03:27 PM
How Children REALLY React To Control Chris General 444 July 20th 04 07:14 PM
Math program LFortier General 30 January 28th 04 06:41 AM
Choosing a preschool Cheryl S. General 58 November 4th 03 03:04 PM
POLL: Question about upper elementary math chiam margalit General 19 October 20th 03 12:46 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:36 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 ParentingBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.