One of the push backs from teachers against Common Core, (which tries to teach 3 grade levels above what is currently being taught each class), is that children’s brains are not ready at younger ages for complicated math analysis. To this corporate executives say baloney and for that solo reason, we are teaching complex mathematics to kindergärtners today, who should be learning basic numbers. Teachers report that this concept is not working. We now have research showing teachers do indeed know that they are talking about……
“During the study, as the children aged from an average of 8.2 to 9.4 years, they became faster and more accurate at solving math problems, and relied more on retrieving math facts from memory and less on counting….”
(This is the opposite of Common Core which wants one to figure out every problem from scratch by drawing pictures of circles with toggles in them, to show one understands math “concepts”. If you do a problem in your head as above, you lose points )
“As these shifts in strategy took place, the researchers saw several changes in the children’s brains. The hippocampus, a region with many roles in shaping new memories, was activated more in children’s brains after one year. Regions involved in counting, including parts of the prefrontal and parietal cortex, were activated less.”
(What this means is that by continuing Common Core policies, children are reusing the parts of their brain which are designed to be breaking down and being inactivated. If they do a common core problem one day, the brain eliminates that neuron the next. It is worthless endeavor. Likewise, the hippocampus which at that time is growing, is not getting any mathematical data to pocket as being memorized. It is an opportunity lost.)
“The scientists also saw changes in the degree to which the hippocampus was connected to other parts of children’s brains, with several parts of the prefrontal, anterior temporal cortex and parietal cortex more strongly connected to the hippocampus after one year. Crucially, the stronger these connections, the greater was each individual child’s ability to retrieve math facts from memory, a finding that suggests a starting point for future studies of math-learning…”
This is proof that Common Core is making children dumber. Something all experts have been stating.
“Although children were using their hippocampus more after a year, adolescents and adults made minimal use of their hippocampus while solving math problems. Instead, they pulled math facts from well-developed information stores in the neocortex.”
Which is exactly what Common Core does not do: put math facts into the neocortex!
“What this means is that the hippocampus is providing a scaffold for learning and consolidating facts into long-term memory in children,” said Menon, who is also the Rachel L. and Walter F. Nichols, MD, Professor at the medical school of Stanford. Children’s brains are building a schema for mathematical knowledge. The hippocampus helps support other parts of the brain as adultlike neural connections for solving math problems are being constructed. “In adults this scaffold is not needed because memory for math facts has most likely been consolidated into the neocortex,” he said. Interestingly, the research also showed that, although the adult hippocampus is not as strongly engaged as in children, it seems to keep a backup copy of the math information that adults usually draw from the neocortex.”
If one doesn’t take the proper designated time between each of these learning steps, this process is interrupted. Teaching 3rd Graders Sines , Tangents and Cosines before their multiplicative skills have been locked in their neocortex is fruitless. Yet that is exactly what Common Core does. Pushes 3 higher grade-levels down hard on students still struggling with the basics.
“The brain’s activity patterns were more stable in adolescents and adults than in children, suggesting that as the brain gets better at solving math problems its activity becomes more consistent.”
What happened in the whole Common Core formation process was that David Coleman designed Common Core on his processes of thinking, ones that adults and adolescents use to learn. At the time, having no children himself, he was completely ignorant that children use completely different parts of the brain to learn ….
Common Core, as every early-childhood teacher has said, does not work on young children… We now have the brain scans to prove it.
Save Common Core rigor for college, where it belongs. Through these brain scans, those supporting arguments for Common Core just got bumped from science,… over to myth…..
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August 20, 2014 at 8:46 pm
kavips
I should add, if you modify the 1-3 grades to accommodate this new research, if throws the entire 3-8th grade out of kilter, since Common Core is built from kindergarten upwards. If you skip one item in kindergarten, the student struggles the next 8 grades.
The best possible scenario right now is to opt out of the Smarter Balanced tests, If our state shows that we cannot adequately test 95% of students, the entire Common Core deal is off. No more smarter balanced assessments.
It will force the legislature to get involved.
We will find Greg Lavelle one morning, metaphorically hanging from a tree.
August 21, 2014 at 10:19 pm
Heide Janshon
Please have someone proofread this article for grammar and sentence structure. I would love to forward, but it is not well written. It would sound much more credible and intellectual. Thanks very much.
August 21, 2014 at 10:38 pm
kavips
Done.
August 21, 2014 at 11:38 pm
jane
Still has spelling/grammar errors
August 22, 2014 at 7:24 am
cmsk
“This if proof that Common Core…” for one.
August 22, 2014 at 11:59 am
Adam Silver (@metfan62)
Would also be helpful if you could cite who conducted the research and the name of the report.
August 22, 2014 at 1:14 pm
cka
I would not use “rigor” and “Common Core” in the same context. “Rigor” as it pertains to curriculum includes not only extensive content, profound theory and abstract reasoning but must be developmentally, cognitively and sequentially correct. If this is not evident in the primary curriculum, nothing that follows can be appropriate. The only “rigor” I see is the impossible task of attempting to build any kind of building where there is no foundation.
August 22, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Math master
The article your citing has nothing to do with common core. It deals with why some kids are better at math facts than others.
August 22, 2014 at 4:46 pm
Math master
First rule of research! Always provide links to your sources. This is the actual intent of the article “We wanted to understand how children acquire new knowledge, and determine why some children learn to retrieve facts from memory better than others,” said Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the senior author of the study. “This work provides insight into the dynamic changes that occur over the course of cognitive development in each child.”
August 22, 2014 at 4:49 pm
Math master
Here is the final statement of the article, “In children with math-learning disabilities, we know that the ability to retrieve facts fluently is a basic problem, and remains a bottleneck for them in high school and college,” he said. “Is it that the hippocampus can’t provide a reliable scaffold to build good representations of math facts in other parts of the brain during the early stages of learning, and so the child continues to use inefficient strategies to solve math problems? We want to test this.”
August 22, 2014 at 5:20 pm
kavips
At the point you made this comment, you had not read the cited article correctly; it does not deal with “why some kids are better at math facts than others”. It deals with 28 cases of the same child who is better at math facts 1.2 years after his original scan. Just as Darwin’s original research has nothing to do with antibiotic resistant bacteria, but is prevalent in explaining how they come about, we took the knowledge gleaned from his research and applied it to another application that was of interest to us. Do you have citings of which we don’t know, that disprove this? If so, we would be interested to hear.
August 22, 2014 at 5:27 pm
kavips
Links were there. Obviously you found them. We are well aware, as is everyone else who has read this, of what the actual research was.
August 22, 2014 at 5:28 pm
kavips
Did you find them yet? Click the links; it takes you directly to the page.
August 23, 2014 at 12:41 pm
tropnetworking
After the reading the study, I would have the opposite conclusion as the authors here. The study found the older people had more memorized and did less counting and the youngest still needed to go through the counting. That sounds analogous to the way common core teaches students the steps to work through a problem. After learning the step, then they can rely to a greater extent on what has been memorized.
August 23, 2014 at 2:36 pm
kavips
You are correct on the brain. Incorrect on Common Core… To understand the author, look over early childhood Common Core. Where as earlier generations learned that 2 + 2 = 4, Common Core does not teach basic numbers. No one really is sure what it teaches… We can’t show you because it is proprietary information. But ask any teacher.
September 25, 2014 at 12:04 am
Laura Ann
The reason why teachers were right all along is because they studied the mandatory college course of Child Development, unlike their business school curriculum developers. The Piaget child development model, the most accepted model of child development for childhood learning, teaches that: Ages 2-7 learn by play, hands on, manipulatives, Ages 7-11 are concrete thinkers which is why addition, subtraction, multiplication formulas and multiplication tables are successful with this group, and finally, 11 and older is when logic develops and is a good time to introduce algorithms, algebraic equations, and different ways to figure out and understand new ways to get an answer. The baby crawls before walking and walks before jumping because of their muscle development. Babies will not be better athletes if made to jump first. Children will not be better students if made to do algebraic equations in kindergarten.
September 25, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Louise
Kavips, I am a teacher. Common Core is a set of standards that are easily found online. They’re not “proprietary information”. I just read over some of the kindergarten standards (http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/introduction/) and they are right on target (example: Count to 100; write numbers from 0 to 20). Can you find a kindergarten standard for me that you think belongs in 3rd grade? I’m having a hard time understanding your concerns. Thanks.
September 26, 2014 at 8:24 pm
TCliff
Laura Ann, I do not think you know the difference between concrete and abstract math. Concrete math is hands-on, manipulative based, and student-centered…which is what “common core math” is calling for….algorithms (“formulas”) are very abstract. Math is a very human endeavor to make sense out of the world around us. All math came from basic counting, using sticks, very hands-on and experiential. That is how children should come to see math, that it all comes from something they can see and feel, and discover. Anything less than that and all math is is magic or something a few are born able to do and the rest…not so much.
The US is filled with adults who are math illiterate or math-phobic, who readily admit they “are not good at math”, “hated math growing up”, chose their careers or college majors based on how little math they would have to do…and those adults did not go through “common core math”. They learned the “good old way” of memorizing facts and following math recipes. And they didn’t learn it, and they hated their math education. Just ask 3 random adults if they liked math and were good at it in school, and I will bet 2 of them will say no.
There are lots of reasons to HATE Common Core, but the early math is NOT it. That it was sold as a set of standards to get kids into STEM majors, when clearly it is not, IS a huge problem. That there are still too many topics each year, without TIME to fully develop basic foundational understanding IS a problem. That the standards were written basically as a way to tag data for companies to use to create material and tests more easily IS a huge problem. That there were already states which had BETTER standards than CCSS and could have been used for FREE…IS a huge problem. That CCSS is part of a plan to create tests that have such high cut scores that all truly public school are deemed “failing” and thus able to be sold off to private companies with no accountability for the taxpayers’ money IS a huge problem.
MANY reasons to HATE CCSS, but the math is not it.
September 26, 2014 at 8:29 pm
TCliff
kavips, you state that CCSSMath was built from kindergarten up, which is not true…they back-mapped everything, starting at college…that is why there are so many problems with the sequencing in ELA, and in math, to a lesser extent. IF they HAD started at K, determining what the important topics were and how best to teach them, providing enough TIME to really develop understanding, and worked up from there, math education may have started out slower (as compared to the rushed pace that has been status quo for decades), but with a solid mathematical foundation students would progress much more quickly in the higher grades (as they do in Asia and Europe). But they didn’t and it isn’t.
September 26, 2014 at 8:36 pm
TCliff
“Teaching 3rd Graders Sines , Tangents and Cosines before their multiplicative”…is SOOOOOOO NOT TRUE! CCSS does NOT have these in their standards for 3rd grade…completely false! I’m not even sure that it has high schoolers doing that!
September 26, 2014 at 8:48 pm
TCliff
kavips, CCSS are readily available on-line. What a bunch of ridiculousness!
September 26, 2014 at 11:33 pm
kavips
We know. CCSS are extremely ridiculous.
September 26, 2014 at 11:34 pm
kavips
Are you sure? I’ve seen it.
September 26, 2014 at 11:37 pm
kavips
True, I can’t find where I said that but if I did I meant what you said. They started at 11th grade and went backwards. I found it interesting that what you described: “started at K, determining what the important topics were and how best to teach them, providing enough TIME to really develop understanding, and worked up from there,” is how math as always been taught, up to now…..
September 26, 2014 at 11:40 pm
kavips
Humbly disagree… Common Core Math is the number one reason parents hate Common Core. Have you taken the tests? We have.
September 27, 2014 at 10:10 am
Alyson
If anyone wants to see what this research actually says:
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/08/new-research-sheds-light-on-how-childrens-brains-memorize-facts.html
Hint: it has nothing to do with educational model. The instructional method is not even mentioned or considered.
August 17, 2015 at 6:23 am
SCCNY
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
August 17, 2015 at 9:47 pm
daveeckstrom
This is nonsense for a whole host of reasons. I’ll mention only the 3 most obvious to me, in the interest of time.
First, if you read the actual study carefully does not imply AT ALL what this blogger is saying it does. I think a CCSS supporter could make a VERY strong case from this research in favor of the Common Core math sequencing. For example, the fact that older children rely more on fact retrieval and compute faster is EXACTLY in tune with the CCSS sequencing. The CCSS requires memorization of facts, but only after the student understands the process. This makes complete sense, base on how the brain works.
Secondly, if you want to make a case against the CCSS, please, please take a look at the actual standards, so you can at least give the impression that you know what you’re talking about. People like me, who are on the fence with CCSS cannot take you seriously when you make statements that clearly show you haven’t even considered the actual content of the standards. For example, the second I read “Teaching 3rd Graders Sines , Tangents and Cosines . . .” I knew I had to regard everything else with suspicion, because the trig functions do not show up in the CCSS until high school.
Third, when you point to single method that is required by the common core, or say that kids are being penalized by CC for doing a problem a particular way, you are either demonstrating your ignorance or lying. Two quick examples:
(a) “…Common Core…wants one to figure out every problem from scratch by drawing pictures of circles with toggles in them…” There is no place in any CC standard that requires anything like circles and toggles. Not at all. That is completely false.
(b) “If you do a problem in your head as above, you lose points.” There are no “points” in the CCSS. It’s not even a curriculum or a teaching methodology, let alone a grading policy. This is also completely false.
August 18, 2015 at 8:59 am
kavips
Thank you for engaging. You state: “the fact that older children rely more on fact retrieval and compute faster is EXACTLY in tune with the CCSS sequencing”. I agree. My contention is that if they never ever get those facts stored into a place from which they can later be retrieved, then your point and Common Core’s is mute. Today’s reality is that 6th Grade children who’ve been in Common Core now 3 years, don’t know multiplication tables… Years ago by 6th grade my peers and I knew almost all… I simply can’t imagine how anyone is able to function not knowing multiplication tables…
As I read your critique I must say, I was pulled to thinking it was very similar to if someone told Van Gogh he did not know how to paint. (Which they did) They would say: You didn’t follow this painting rule; you didn’t follow that painting rule; you used colors not found in nature…
Well today we all know Van Gogh could paint. I think you are simply trying to find fault without looking at the overall picture as a whole…
Second of all. We differ on viewpoint. You seemed preoccupied with standards. I know I’m preoccupied with actual children. Anyone can make standards; enforcing them is altogether different. Previously we have likened Common Core to mandating every child eats a certain amount of protein for breakfast… A good mandate, right? But when a vendor takes chicken poop and stuffs it into intestines and sells it as sausage still meeting that protein guideline, the result of that mandate is not very good at all.
To reframe your argument, Standards are only as good as their enforcement. Or, if you have “bad people” enforcing standards, you are better off not having those guidelines so “bad people” can use them against you.
Common Core all boils down to “the test”. One cannot argue the pros of Common Core (and there are pros) and ignore the test. Just like those poop sausages mentioned above, if you don’t look at the final product, then you shouldn’t be supporting the enforcement of it which damages children…
And the PAARC and Smarter Balanced Assessments are so bad, they make poop sausages look appetizing…
The observation of yours that was closest to the truth, was where you pointed out that sines, cosines, and tangents were not being taught in 3rd grade… I had hoped the italicization of those three words would alert the reader to their sarcasm, and since you are the first to bring it up out of tens of thousands, I think for most it did…
I used it to express the frustration felt by every parent who has helped their child with common core homework.. As an example of what is being taught in 3rd grade, I point you to question 554 on the Smarter Balanced Assessment, math, 3rd Grade.. This question went way overboard for any but the best-tutored child… Most adults have trouble filling it out correctly. which does not mean to portend that most adults are ignorant stupids; they are the doctors, engineers, lawyers, and accountants of today. They can’t be stupid. But this test is overly complicated and it is this test which is taught across America, not those obscure standards that themselves are very difficult to read.
So all can quibble, and in sort of a grand vision kind of way, that is for the general good. But child brain experts have for several years now said that Common Core is bad for children. All this article states is we now have brain scans to give photographic credence to their postulations.
Again, thank you for engaging.