Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!masnet!rose!david.lloyd-jones From: david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp (DAVID LLOYD-JONES) Newsgroups: comp.edu Distribution: world Subject: Teaching teaching. Message-ID: Date: Sat, 4 May 91 10:11:00 EST Organization: Rose Media, ON, CANADA Lines: 47 Replying to: grant@psych.toronto.edu (Stuart Grant) >Orga: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto > > >Calling the education faculty math courses wimpy, and making math teachers >take "regular" math courses is not the answer. The quality of math >instruction will improve if teachers are given more training in the >teaching of math. Teaching math is difficult, Motivating students and >getting across abstract concepts that the students have not used before >is, I believe, the greatest difficulty. > >So, I think math instruction can be best improved not by teaching the >teachers more math, but by giving them more teaching skills, including >additinal training in how to teach math. > This assumes that there is a body of knowledge, "knowledge about the teaching of...." I would be interested to know if you have evidence for this. * * * It will not satisfy me to be told that "effective teachers do thus and so." What I need are examples of things which can be taught to people who are not effective teachers with the result that they become effective teachers. If it is your claim that ineffective teachers can learn the techniques which effective teachers use -- and in so doing so then change into effective teachers -- then I would require some evidence for this claim. The claim is often made, with the assumption that it is self-evident. I do not believe that it is self-evident, and think it highly likely that it is false. -dlj. ---