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发帖数: 19398 | 1 魁北克试验采用类似美国方法教数学，结果挂了
Canada Quebec’s math reform -- epic fail
ttp://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2014/08/1st-major-study-of-reform-math-
epic-fail.html
In the August 2014 issue of Economics of Education Review:
Abstract
We investigate the impact of an ambitious provincial school reform in Canada
on students’ mathematical achievements. It is the first paper to exploit a
universal school reform of this magnitude to identify the causal effect of
a widely supported teaching approach on students’ math scores. Our data set
allows us to differentiate impacts according to the number of years of
treatment and the timing of treatment. Using the changes-in-changes model,
we find that the reform had negative effects on students’ scores at all
points on the skills distribution and that the effects were larger the
longer the exposure to the reform.[emphasis added]
[snip]
In this paper, we estimate the impact of Quebec’s (the second most
populated province in Canada) ambitious and universal school reform
implemented in the early 2000’s on children’s mathematical ability
throughout primary and secondary school. At the time of the reform, the
performance of students in the province of Quebec was comparable to that of
students from the top performing countries in international assessments.
Nonetheless, the educational system in Quebec was still subject to severe
criticism at home due to its alarmingly large high school dropout rate,
especially among male students.6 To ensure the success of all students,the
province decided to implement an ambitious reform introducing a new program
in each and every school across the province which drastically changed the
way teaching was delivered to all children in primary and secondary schools.
The Quebec education program (MELS, 2001, 2003, 2007) relied on a socio-
constructivist teaching approach focused on problem-based and self-directed
learning. [emphasis added] This approach mainly moved teaching away from the
traditional/academic approaches of memorization, repetitions and activity
books, to a much more comprehensive approach focused on learning in a
contextual setting in which children are expected to find answers for
themselves. [emphasis added]
. . . . More specifically, the teaching approach promoted by the Quebec
reform is comparable to the reform-oriented teaching approach in the United
States. As of 2006, this approach was widely spread across the United States
(although more traditional approaches remained dominant) and it was
supported by leading organizations such as the National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics, the National Research Council, and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. Yet few studies in economics have addressed
the impact of various teaching approaches, let alone the approach promoted
by the Quebec reform.
[snip]
[The] approach was designed to enable students to ‘‘find answers to
questions arising out of everyday experience, to develop a personal and
social value system, and to adopt responsible and increasingly autonomous
behaviors’’ (MELS, 2005).
In the classroom, students were expected to be more actively involved in
their own learning and take responsibility for it. Critical to this aspect
was the need to relate their learning activities to their prior knowledge
and transfer their newly acquired knowledge to new situations in their daily
lives. ‘‘Instead of passively listening to teachers, students will take
in active, hands-on learning. They will spend more time working on projects,
doing research and solving problems based on their areas of interest and
their concerns. They will more often take part in workshops or team learning
to develop a broad range of competencies.’’ (MELS, 1999). This
centralized approach in providing the program and training with a school-
based execution is in many ways comparable to the current approach taken
within the comprehensive school reform (CSR) models at the national level in
the United States (Borman et al., 2003). The main differences are that in
Quebec, implementation was mandatory in each and every school, funding was
not tied to the implementation, and training packages and support are
centralized in many ways. These differences are critical: they imply that
the reform had to be implemented in all schools, and that the resources and
training was not tied to individual school characteristics. Whether private
or public, English speaking or French speaking, all schools across the
province were mandated to follow the reform according to the implementation
schedule. This implies that all children in Quebec were treated according to
same timeline, and that parents were not able to self-select their children
into or out of the reform, except by moving out of the province which they
did not.
The school reform was planned at the highest level by civil servants at the
Department of Education (MELS). The MELS imposes the program to be followed
in each grade by every school. The 69 School Boards (60 Francophone and 9
Anglophone) responsible for all public schools, their superintendents and
the school principals, are the channels and drive belts between the MELS and
school teachers and students.
[snip]
Conclusion
We find strong evidence of negative effects of the reform on the development
of students’ mathematical abilities. More specifically, using the changes-
in-changes estimator, we show that the impact of the reform increases with
exposure, and that it impacts negatively students at all points on the
skills distribution. . . . Students from the lower end of the distribution
do not seem to be in a better position to successfully complete their
schooling. Mathematical abilities are strongly related to school attainment
and labor market outcomes, and for lower performing students they are at
best equivalent post reform, but most likely lower.
The teaching approach dictated by the reform is based on socio-
constructivism. According to Pinker (1997), proponents of this method
believe that children must construct mathematical knowledge for themselves
with the teacher only guiding the discussion on the topics and that
repetitions and practice are seen as detrimental to learning. He argues that
constructivism is not appropriate for mathematics. For him, ‘‘. . .
without the practice that compiles a halting sequence of steps into a mental
reflex, a learner will always be building mathematical structures out of
the tiniest nuts and bolts’’. Certain skills for mathematics may be very
difficult to ‘‘construct’’ at a young age and can possibly be better
attained by old-fashioned practice and a more mechanical approach. Pinker
suggests that the poor performance of the United States in mathematics could
be linked to the teaching approach, which is mainly contextual with no
teaching of mathematical concepts. The evidence presented in this paper
supports this argument.
The distributional impacts of a universal school reform on mathematical
achievements: A natural experiment from Canada by Catherine Haeck, Pierre
Lefebvre *, Philip Merrigan
Well, well, well.
Contra Elizabeth Green (again), history does not fold itself meekly into a
Bill Gates-approved narrative in which "the traditional approach we take to
teaching math — the one that can be mind-numbing, but also comfortingly
familiar — does not work."
Using the traditional approach, Quebec schools produced students whose
achievement "was comparable to that of students from the top performing
countries in international assessments."
Using constructivism, they produced students whose achievement suffered at
every grade level, and at every skill level to boot. Good students did worse
, bad students did worse, in-between students did worse. Everyone did worse
in constructivist math.
Because constructivism doesn't work.
As to the teachers, whom Green cites as the source of Reform Math failure,
the article notes that "Extensive training was provided to support the new
program."
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