Student in the U.S. have trouble understanding the equal sign

[Pollinosis]

COLLEGE STATION, Aug. 10, 2010 — Taken very literally, not all students are created equal—especially in their math learning skills, say Texas A&M University researchers who have found that not fully understanding the “equal sign” in a math problem could be a key to why U.S. students underperform their peers from other countries in math.

“About 70 percent of middle grades students in the United States exhibit misconceptions, but nearly none of the international students in Korea and China have a misunderstanding about the equal sign, and Turkish students exhibited far less incidence of the misconception than the U.S. students,” note Robert M. Capraro and Mary Capraro of the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture at Texas A&M.The problem is students memorize procedures without fully understanding the mathematics, he notes.

“Students who have learned to memorize symbols and who have a limited understanding of the equal sign will tend to solve problems such as 4+3+2=( )+2 by adding the numbers on the left, and placing it in the parentheses, then add those terms and create another equal sign with the new answer,” he explains. “So the work would look like 4+3+2=(9)+2=11.

“This response has been called a running equal sign—similar to how a calculator might work when the numbers and equal sign are entered as they appear in the sentence,” he explains. “However, this understanding is incorrect. The correct solution makes both sides equal. So the understanding should be 4+3+2=(7)+2. Now both sides of the equal sign equal 9.”

Source: http://tamunews.tamu.edu/2010/08/10/students%E2%80%99-understanding-of-the-equal-sign-not-equal/

[Get with the Pogrom™]

Well, Americunts are so dumbed down at this point. (Forgive me if this seems like some kind of thread hijacking, but this lack of logic really does my head in.)

They are so dumbed down that they don't know that, for example

circumcision = mutilation

Their minds literally can't handle even some basic equations. Completely just blustering and bluffing their way through arguments. Ignoring the dictionary definition of things, and replacing the dictionary with their own drivel.

This partly why Asians do better in math. Quebecers also do well at math, since they are bi- and tri-lingual.

[Angler]

Someone who doesn't understand what an "equals" sign means by the "middle grades" is clearly uneducable, and no effort should be wasted trying to teach him anything beyond menial labor.

[John the Savage]

Students who have learned to memorize symbols and who have a limited understanding of the equal sign will tend to solve problems such as 4+3+2=( )+2 by adding the numbers on the left, and placing it in the parentheses, then add those terms and create another equal sign with the new answer,” he explains. “So the work would look like 4+3+2=(9)+2=11.

To be completely fair, that one would probably stump me, too. I've never seen empty parentheses used to denote an unknown quantity in an algebraic expression. Here in the U.S. it's always denoted as a letter (x, y, etc.).

Perhaps they use different types of notations in the rest of the world that confused the U.S. students.

[Jake Featherston]

In all fairness the equation "4+3+2=( )+2" is incorrect so it is the teachers that need educating.

Yeah, with the stupid parenthetical, I probably would have found nine instead of seven, reading it essentially as 4+3+2=9+2=11.

But if they had written it as 4+3+2+=X+2, which is the only way I've ever seen anyone express such a notion, then I'd have no difficulty discerning X=7. Perhaps the test was just grossly flawed?

[Angler]

Yeah, with the stupid parenthetical, I probably would have found nine instead of seven, reading it essentially as 4+3+2=9+2=11.

But if they had written it as 4+3+2+=X+2, which is the only way I've ever seen anyone express such a notion, then I'd have no difficulty discerning X=7. Perhaps the test was just grossly flawed?Now that you guys mention it, confusion related to notation is probably to blame for a lot of the errors. We'd probably have to look at the exact test to be sure, but it's hard to believe that so many students could be stupid enough to not understand the "equals" sign. It's more plausible that the test was flawed.

[Get with the Pogrom™]

I suppose math is a language, and American stoodints are weak in language. Note "language" in the singular. "English"-only, and usually only some low-brow vernacular riddled with sports analogies.

So Bush claims he speaks Spanish and knows two phrases. Such a pansy. Instead of some substance, just bluster.

[Transcendentally Challenged]

In all fairness the equation "4+3+2=( )+2" is incorrect so it is the teachers that need educating.

Why did they place the ( )?

[Ahknaton]

Why did they place the ( )?
This kind of thing was just coming into vogue when I was helping my younger brother out with his homework. Basically, they try to ease students into the concept of algebraic unknowns by presenting it as a fill-in-the-blanks question (with the parentheses indicating the blank), rather than saying "find x". Then later on, they start using xs and ys and so on instead of blanks. Unfortunately it seems to just make things more confusing.

[Lionheart]

The obvious solution is math-themed comic books.

[Felix the Cat]

The "problem" is that every 25 years the teaching profession decides on a radical new way of teaching mathematics which throws established norms into chaos. They've done this twice already and we're about due for number 3.

[Gruppenführer Glitter]

This kind of thing was just coming into vogue when I was helping my younger brother out with his homework. Basically, they try to ease students into the concept of algebraic unknowns by presenting it as a fill-in-the-blanks question (with the parentheses indicating the blank), rather than saying "find x". Then later on, they start using xs and ys and so on instead of blanks. Unfortunately it seems to just make things more confusing.

That is just plain stupid. There is nothing difficult about simple algebraic equations. Why purposely obfuscate learning by adding another pointless step? I just don't understand why school districts are constantly trying to modify curriculum every few years in ways that have ambiguous benfits. It's like they are looking for ways to justify their jobs.

When I learned algebra, I found my dad's old school texts from the early 60s to be much more straightforward, clear, and concise. Anything I didn't understand in class, I learned though that old book. I only used my own textbook for the homework problems. My own textbook actually had a rap song for learning prime numbers. When I look back, it really is insulting that educators think so little of students by purposely dumbing down the learning process with pretty pictures and gay songs in an algebra lesson.

[Felix the Cat]

They're looking for ways to avoid failing students. Mathematics is difficult and only a minority of kids will master it. However acknowledging that runs into ideological problems.

[Macrobius]

Why did they place the ( )?

Those who are old enough to remember the 'New Math' of the 60s will recall that the elementary school textbooks of that era tried to jump start the kids on algebra while making it look 'friendly' in a Dick and Jane and see Spot run sort of way.

They often used a square, rather than an X, as a 'place holder' or 'blank'. The parens looks like some boomer kid passed on his math knowledge to a new generation of 'teachers'....

7 + 8 = [ ]

Was a pretty normal 1st grade workbook problem, with an occasional

7 + [ ] = 15

tossed in to throw you for a loop and realise that equality was a relation, not a command to commence the algorithm. Likely, there were quite a few boomer kids who didn't take the hint, and their class size was large enough no one caught this primal flaw, so now the bug has gone through two iterations and is getting worse.

Dang Sputnik and New Math!

[Delmac]

Those who are old enough to remember the 'New Math' of the 60s will recall that the elementary school textbooks of that era tried to jump start the kids on algebra while making it look 'friendly' in a Dick and Jane and see Spot run sort of way.

They often used a square, rather than an X, as a 'place holder' or 'blank'. The parens looks like some boomer kid passed on his math knowledge to a new generation of 'teachers'....

7 + 8 = [ ]

Was a pretty normal 1st grade workbook problem, with an occasional

7 + [ ] = 15

tossed in to throw you for a loop and realise that equality was a relation, not a command to commence the algorithm. Likely, there were quite a few boomer kids who didn't take the hint, and their class size was large enough no one caught this primal flaw, so now the bug has gone through two iterations and is getting worse.

Dang Sputnik and New Math!

I blame Bourbaki.

[GimpFuFighting]

Knowing how leftists love double standards, they'll never need to know what the symbol means either.

[Baron_Corvo]

There was a source of confusion for anyone who learnt computer programming in the 1980s; an equals sign meant "replace one expression in a register with another one". Do they still use that?

[Kodos]

There was a source of confusion for anyone who learnt computer programming in the 1980s; an equals sign meant "replace one expression in a register with another one". Do they still use that?

Depends on the programming language and the operation. If you are using assembly code then since you are directly manipulating registers then almost certainly yes. Otherwise it varies widely.

[Brechun]

Someone who doesn't understand what an "equals" sign means by the "middle grades" is clearly uneducable, and no effort should be wasted trying to teach him anything beyond menial labor.

Be serious. The bulk of this probably has markedly little to do with intellectual abilities and such. This is a profoundly simple operation that even Turks manage to beat us on.

[Delmac]

There was a source of confusion for anyone who learnt computer programming in the 1980s; an equals sign meant "replace one expression in a register with another one". Do they still use that?

Wasn't that just Basic and its relatives, ":=" being more common for assignment in other procedural languages?

[Ahknaton]

There was a source of confusion for anyone who learnt computer programming in the 1980s; an equals sign meant "replace one expression in a register with another one". Do they still use that?
Most popular languages still use = to mean assignment.

C
C++
Java
Javascript
ActionScript (Flash)
VisualBASIC

etc

[Ahknaton]

Wasn't that just Basic and its relatives, ":=" being more common for assignment in other procedural languages?
That's just Pascal I think.

[Felix the Cat]

Who remembers FORTRAN?

That uses .eq. for relational operations

[President Camacho]

That is just plain stupid. There is nothing difficult about simple algebraic equations. Why purposely obfuscate learning by adding another pointless step? I just don't understand why school districts are constantly trying to modify curriculum every few years in ways that have ambiguous benfits. It's like they are looking for ways to justify their jobs.

When I learned algebra, I found my dad's old school texts from the early 60s to be much more straightforward, clear, and concise. Anything I didn't understand in class, I learned though that old book. I only used my own textbook for the homework problems. My own textbook actually had a rap song for learning prime numbers. When I look back, it really is insulting that educators think so little of students by purposely dumbing down the learning process with pretty pictures and gay songs in an algebra lesson.What do you expect; with an ineducable underclass teachers have to reinvent this shit over and over again to make it look like they're "fixing" the problem.

When it inevitably fails, teachers must resort to the tried and true methods of "teaching the test" rather than the material, and padding scores.

[Baron_Corvo]

Wasn't that just Basic and its relatives, ":=" being more common for assignment in other procedural languages?

It was Basic I learnt, back in 1987, and COBOL (groan) so that's where my knowledge of programming comes from (apart from a brief course in something called LOGO which is used to teach programming to kids).

@Ahk; I'm happy to bow to your greater knowledge here.

[Felix the Cat]

Depends on the programming language and the operation. If you are using assembly code then since you are directly manipulating registers then almost certainly yes. Otherwise it varies widely. 8086 assembler doesn't use the equals sign. You would use MOV to load values in registers and CMP to test for equality.

[Kodos]

8086 assembler doesn't use the equals sign. You would use MOV to load values in registers and CMP to test for equality.

Uh the PIC.............. HATED THAT CLASS...

Er nevermind that wasn't the PIC that WAS standard assembly, I passionately hated assembly language I do remember MOV commands though... let me see PUSH to move the value onto the stack. INT for interrupts to actually do something... POP to get a value from the stack onto a register.

[Felix the Cat]

PIC?

I learned this stuff in order to crack DOS games a long long time ago

[Kanttu]

That is just plain stupid. There is nothing difficult about simple algebraic equations. Why purposely obfuscate learning by adding another pointless step?
Perhaps you should ask the Rockefellers?

Why would anyone want the masses to be ignorant yokels spending their life watching porn and bloodsport? You may go to YouTube or LiveLeak and watch those orgastic Iraq FuuuuckYeaaaah-videos to give you a hint.

There are couple of books on the issue. Just search 'dumbing down school'. They can be found on Amazon and other mainstream bookstores and are done by 'normal' people, so they won't be connecting it to the larger picture and other areas of interest.

I just don't understand why school districts are constantly trying to modify curriculum every few years in ways that have ambiguous benfits.
You have assumptions. You seem to think they work for your good and go by the same logic as you do.

It's like they are looking for ways to justify their jobs.
Always an issue with organisations, officials and byrocrats. There are people who can create and live independently and are assured that they can manage in times of crisis. Then there is the vast masses, who know only the routines they have been taught, and identify with them and their position in some organisation. They are their job. Teachers, police, government officials etc.

My own textbook actually had a rap song for learning prime numbers.
That kind of stuff comes out in other areas too, most notably in teaching history. Just read some current popular US history books or pick a random academic book on social studies, cultural BS etc. and you'll find that kind of things in it. They literally give rap lyrics as an device to teach negroes.

Nice book to read is The Lies My Teacher Told Me, if you are not simple minded and can see the dynamics being played out that is. It also has very good info in it.

All 'soft' sciences have been infiltrated ages ago by tolerant worldview and they have spread it also into math for some twenty+ years. Look at the pictures in math books. They have been deliberately chosen and created to implant the worldview of the multiracial Empire.

When I look back, it really is insulting that educators think so little of students by purposely dumbing down the learning process with pretty pictures and gay songs in an algebra lesson.
Educators have themselves been educated in larger institutions. Don't let the vastness of the cerebral construct get you fooled. Most educators and scientists are nothing but technicians repeating a set of programs. Only difference between idiots watching sports and engineers is IQ i.e. cerebral capacity and complexity of the information structure.

http://us.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=altavista&itag=ody&q=education+studies&kgs=0&kls=0

http://www.educationalstudies.org
Take a look at the publications and browse through their links.
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/
http://www.aft.org/

There's legion of them.

Education think tanks and institutions are part of the same network as political ones.

The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
Those 'marxists' have been busy while stupid patriots we're eager to die in Korea and Vietnam. Only when nigger is put as the leading figure they wake up to whine about marxists, but still don't realize the decades of media putting negroes on pedestal and all that tolerant brainwashing done to their chidlren by school system. Many see parts of it but do not have the temporal ability comprehend and connect different areas.