Extra Credit - Alpine School District Math Investigations

What is Investigations Math?
Investigations Math is a program that involves hands-on, standards based learning to help students understand "how" to solve a math problem and not just know the steps involved to achieve the answer.

Some key features of the program include:
* Using manipulative's to help the students understand how to solve the problem.
* The students can each take a different methods to achieve the correct answer. Each path could be different as long as it ended with the correct answer.
* The students have opportunities to share with each other the steps they took to achieve the answer and demonstrate to each other the process of achieving that answer instead of just the giving the answer to the problem.

What were the arguments for and against its use?
This was a very controversial program in the Alpine School District. Orem Elementary was one of the pilot schools that used this program before it went to the rest of the school district. I interviewed a teacher that was teaching at Orem Elementary during this pilot program and my information came from her experience.

Some of the arguments FOR Investigations Math include:
1. The students would be able to understand the process of achieving the answer and would know how to apply it into their everyday lives (instead of just learning the FOIL method, they would learn why they need to use this method and how to apply it to their lives.)
2. Instead of having timed tests where students just spit out an answer that they have memorized (like multiplications for example), they would find ways to understand the process of how that answer is achieved.
3. Students share their strategies and teach each other. It's not just teacher directed, they learn from their peers. The students share their strategies of how they came up with the answer and demonstrate for the class their path. This helps the students understand that there is more than one way to complete the problem. The students don't just perform a procedure but they understand the problem and how to come up with the answer.

Some of the arguments AGAINST Investigations Math include:
1. Parents didn't like their children to come up with the "method" of answering the problem on their own. They wanted their children to be taught the method and have step-by-step procedures taught and followed by their children.
2. Parents didn't like the freedom that it offered their children. They didn't think that their children were being taught math formulas and procedures by the teachers.
3. The parents didn't like that the major focus wasn't drill-timed tests.
4. Parents didn't think their child was learning as quickly using this method. They felt that using so many manipulative's slowed their children's mathematical progress.
5. Parents didn't understand how the program worked and just thought that their child was "playing" instead of actively learning with the manipulative's they were using.
6. State standardized tests weren't up to speed with the new program so the student's received lower tests the first few years. While this was expected, the parents didn't like that.

What were the results of its use in Alpine?
Because of all the controversy and opposition from the parents, Alpine School Districts decided not to make Investigations Math the district wide program that they wanted everyone to use. Instead, they gave each school an option to choose between three different math programs. Each school decision was made by a combined panel of teachers and parents through a math preview night. At Orem Elementary, the parents and teachers were given samples of each of these programs that they could research at this preview to help them make their decisions. Because the different publishers only provided small samples for the preview, the parents selected a program other than Investigations Math that had more materials that could be reviewed at the meeting (the McMillan Program at Orem Elementary). The program selected by the parents had more workbooks, worksheets and physical objects where they could see their child learning in a physical timed matter.

The Alpine School District has adopted the BALANCED MATH APPROACH instead. This method is a combination of the teachers instructing the step-by-step directions for the different mathematical methods while still providing manipulative's for the students to learn with. By balancing both of these programs, the student will have the methods needed and still be able to use manipulative's and hands-on techniques to fully understand how to apply it into their lives.

What is your opinion?
I believe that with the BALANCED MATH APPROACH, the students will be better able to grasp the concepts that the teacher is teaching and still be able to find a way to apply it into their lives. I don't think that the parents gave the original program a chance and that they didn't give the teachers enough credit to know that their children would still be learning the different methods to complete the problems. It is my opinion that for the lower grades, that Investigations Math is the best method possible to help reinforce the skills being taught and really teach the students different ways to apply this into their lives.