Scientific Method in the Reconstruction of Ninth-Grade Mathematics Volume 7; A Complete Report of the Investigation of the Illinois Committee on Standardization of Ninth-Grade Mathematics, 1913-1918 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ...First, drill pupils daily in the formal operations by stressing the most difficult and the most important processes. Secondly, drill pupils under "timed" conditions. It should be made "second nature" to manipulate the different formal operations under the pressure of "time." Life-situations continually demand it--the school should constantly prepare for it.1 1 H. O. Rugg and J. R. Clark, "Standardized Tests and the Improvement of Teaching in First-Year Algebra," School Review, XXV (1917), 196-213. CHAPTER VI THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORMAL ABILITIES THROUGH DIFFERENTIATED DRILL: TEACHING SKILLS UNDER "TIMED" CONDITIONS Why such inefficiency as an outcome of instruction as has been shown by the giving of tests? We have had occasion at various points in this report to point out two outstanding reasons: (1) an overloaded course of study and (2) an undifferentiated teaching emphasis. An important element in the latter is a lack of psychological insight into the "learning process" in secondary mathematics. To refer briefly to the first reason in an illustrative way: Pupils cannot factor rapidly and accurately the more important types primarily because they have been forced to distribute their attention and energy over "17 types" or "n types" (if they have been brought up on either one of two well-known texts), each operation of which has been so constructed as to inhibit the learning of any other Furthermore the teacher of elementary algebra will agree, we are quite sure, that only two of these, namely, the monomial factor and the general trinomial, are really basic to the learning process in factoring. In addition, it should be pointed out that the learning of these two types makes the l...