About those viral Common Core problems
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably seen one of those viral posts on social media presenting a (seemingly) ridiculous common core math problem, and possibly even a frustrated parent responding with some kind of exasperated takedown.
Like this one. (Also pictured)
It is super tempting, especially for those of us who have never seen anything like the given problem, to sympathise with the parent. But there is (shockingly) a method to all of this, and it lies in providing students with multiple correct methods for doing the same process. After all, just because the (one) way we learned to do a certain kind of problem in elementary school might be the most efficient (for us), that doesn’t mean there won’t be students who can wrap their brains around things better by using an alternate approach.
In fact, I quickly realised that I do this all the time when teaching basic music theory: there are usually several ways to look at the same operation, and students are always better off hearing several.