The Star – Liam Casey
“Don’t get math teachers started on best teaching practices. The discussions are emotional, heated and they don’t agree on much — except that Canadian kids are falling behind their peers in other countries, and there’s no clear solution. There are generally two camps: those in favour of the old-school method to lecture kids with a “drill-and-kill” format that preaches practice, and another, ever-growing group that believes a more creative approach is needed to engage students. At a recent event in Toronto, dozens of teachers waited in line to take selfies with math-teaching celebrity Dan Meyer, delaying his keynote talk at the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education conference. He is part of the new-school camp. His approach is simple, Meyer says on the phone from California, where he’s a math education researcher at Stanford University.”(more)