[IAEP] inquiry on constructionism advantages

[Maria Droujkova]

You may want to use Jo Boaler's longitudinal study of two British poor
neighborhood schools, one using procedural math and another project-based
math. Kids in the project school did significantly better on standardized
tests, and had higher-than-national passing rate (which is incredible given
low socioeconomic status). There is a lot of various statistics there,
including the fact that project-based learning removed the gender gap. I can
send you a review of the book I just did for a grant. While not directly
about constructionism, the practices and ideals, as described, are very
close.

Reference:

Boaler, J. (2002). Experiencing School Mathematics: Traditional and Reform
Approaches To Teaching and Their Impact on Student Learning, Revised and
Expanded Edition (Rev Enl.). Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova
http://www.naturalmath.com

Make math your own, to make your own math.




On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at gmail.com>wrote:

> I have received an inquiry on implementing constructionism from a high
> official in the Bolivian government.
>
> Since my opinion may be biased :-), I request you help us with clear,
> simple and please objective answers (no vapor-stuff), if at all possible
>
> 1) How do constructionist pupils do on standardized tests, such as
> University entrance exams.  (please inform about other demographic
> situations besides children of highly trained scholars - most Bolivian
> kids do not fit THAT bracket, alas)
>
> 2) How do they do with usual classroom tests, especially in the
> University.
> Core question is, are alumni of constructionism better, or at least
> competitive there?  What evidence do we have to prove this?
>
> 3) Is there any evidence (objective, unbiased) as to the impact of
> constructionism in education?  The big maybe here is further impact on
> development, yes ? (I may be mistaken here, please correct)
>
> 4) any other solid, statistically valid data supporting constructionism
>
> Please avoid treatises - I will be presenting this this week, and if
> anyone would volunteer, it may be possible to put you directly in touch
> with this official and/or his staff.  It is, or should be widely known
> that I see the current conctructionist stance within OLPC and Sugar as a
> misguided, feel-good attempt that is bound to do more harm to most kids
> than good compared to what could be achieved with a solid
> curricular-content approach, but I honestly would be happier I were
> mistaken, if determined by solid evidence.
> I looooove constructionism, it just doesn't seem to me to be what kids
> need, and all in all, I wish it worked, but I cannot prove it does for
> most kids. I am certain, but cannot prove either, that it does work
> within classrooms with highly trained teachers, or for gifted kids, or
> when there is a lot of educated support from home, in any case not a
> basis to adopt it for a country like Bolivia.
>
> Yama
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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