The article’s authors, Sol Garfunkel and David Mumford, argue strongly in favour of a maths curriculum that exists in relation to the science, engineering, finance (and so on) that it serves every day, and they say why it’s so important.

Garfunkel and Mumford make an analogy with languages. Learning French teaches both abstract grammatical skills and practical language, but you will never have the chance to use Latin to buy a loaf of bread. In this respect – they argue – the abstract skills that you might gain from a dead language are wasted if they aren’t learned in a context that you can use.

This chimes with recent suggestions from a review into maths education in the UK (led by the lovely Carol Vorderman) that our maths curriculum pre-A-level should be broken up into ‘practical’ and ‘formal’ maths.

In this curriculum every student takes practical maths, arming them for a life choosing between mortgages and interpreting medical test results. More able and motivated students can opt to take the additional formal, and more abstract, maths module.

Mumford and Garfunkel say that the new US Common Core State Standards, which I’ve helped Whizz align its maths lessons to, is “highly abstract”, and “simply not the best way to prepare a vast majority of high school students for life.” But I’m not sure they’ve got the point of that (or any) curriculum. A curriculum should tell teachers and students what they need to study, not necessarily how, or even why, except maybe to put a subject in context.

It’s the good teacher who draws the abstract and the practical together to greatest effect. Not every teacher – especially at primary level – may be confident enough to link the two, but by giving the teacher the opportunity to do this, rather than prescribing how to apply ‘practical’ maths, an ‘abstract’ curriculum can be as relevant as the teacher and her students want it to be.

Maths is often called the science of patterns. And if chemistry really comes alive when we blow something up, then maths should come alive when we use it to, say, spot the ‘golden ratio’ in Chartres Cathedral (see Marcus du Sautoy’s BBC Series, The Code).

But it’s a two-way street. Project Euler, which I wrote about last month, trains budding programmers by getting them to solve maths puzzles. Garfunkel and Mumford say that practical skills, like learning to code, are more useful than abstract, but in the case of Project Euler the abstract is successfully used to teach the practical, and with some success.

I’ll concede that the principle outlined by Mumford, Garfunkel, Vorderman, et al – of the difference between the maths you use to calculate change and the maths you use to describe fractal geometry – makes perfect sense. But it may be a false distinction.

Whizz Education US company president, Ben, has a skill which I envy – he can intuitively understand the relationships between numbers. For me, it’s not quite so easy, but I wouldn’t want to be denied this insight into abstract maths because of a lack of natural ability; I can still appreciate Chartres Cathedral.

To return to the NY Times’ authors’ analogy, I took Latin and Ancient Greek at GCSE – two subjects that are, in themselves, utterly useless in the real world. But I was enriched by learning them. I could spot some of the hidden histories and meanings in words with ancient roots, and read street signs in modern versions of the ancient Greek alphabet.

If creativity lies in making connections between apparently unrelated subjects then ‘pure’, or theoretical, maths must be vital for creative young science minds, wherever they are. To assume that they should only use maths that tells them how to calculate compound interest (a truly vital skill) is to assume that they will get no pleasure from discovering a subject for its own sake. And that is sad.

At Maths-Whizz we try to instil a sense both of the practical and the abstract – and with our 1200+ maths lessons there’s ample opportunity for the young Whizzer to link the two. As Hilary and Steve, two of our expert founding mathematicians, once pointed out to me – put a pound sign in front of a sum or subtraction with decimal values and it suddenly becomes easier.

So, here’s to producing mathematicians who know that the abstract and the practical are two sides of the same coin. It’s a coin that can teach them as much about pi – that most wonderful of irrational numbers – as it can about the price of a loaf of bread.

Caroline, from MathsInsider, covers the various ways parents can find out their children’s maths age, and how useful this measure can be:

Your child’s maths age is another way of showing what maths level your child is working at. You may have an idea of whether your child finds maths easy or difficult, but knowing your child’s maths age can give you a more precise way of seeing your child’s mathematical strengths and weaknesses.

The four methods MathsInsider suggests are:

1. Ask your child’s teacher
2. Take a test
3. Look at a curriculum document
4. Take an online assessment

Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus’s introductory online assessment is recommended in the online assessment item.

Maths age is something we developed back in the early ’00s, when we started work on Maths-Whizz. It’s key to understanding how our maths tutor works and it’s also the subject of next Monday’s instalment of Maths-Whizz University.

I won’t jump the gun on next week’s explanatory video and info, but one reason why MathsInsider has recommended Maths-Whizz in the past, and again now, is that our tutoring system provides individual personal maths age profiles for every student.

Those maths age profiles are based around the solid standards and principles that underpin Maths-Whizz. They contain maths ages for every relevant topic, and the tutor uses those maths ages to build a personal lesson plan, emphasising weaker areas and bolstering stronger ones.

Check out the MathsInsider side for more maths info or, if you’ve not already tried Maths-Whizz, register now to find your child’s maths age!

Innovation award winners!

The Education Resource Awards (ERA), held on the 18th March, and organised by the British Educational Suppliers Association, were created to:

…celebrate the innovative approach to learning and teaching by teachers, institutions and organisations from all levels of education.

Whizz has been thrice-nominated in previous ERA categories but fourth time, it seems, was the charm (as the vid on the Whizz Youtube channel shows)!

The response of the Whizz team at Birmingham’s Motorcycle Museum pretty much sums up our excitement and pride in this award.

In a more sober fashion, Ray Douse, Whizz CFO, said:

This win means a lot for our business both in the UK and internationally. The objective of Maths-Whizz is to bring together teachers, children and their parents and we feel the judges clearly recognised and valued this feature.

We can now add this to the stack of other awards in the Whizz Awards Cabinet, along with two other finalist positions at this year’s ERA.

You can read the official BESA press release here.

By way of compensation for this lack of seasonal cheer, here’s a lovely and slightly soothing season’s greetings video from erstwhile Whizz animator Joana Teixidor.

christmas 2010/2011 from Joana Teixidor on Vimeo.

Have a happy and healthy 2011, from all of us at Maths-Whizz!

The Mead School, in Tunbridge Wells, is a long-time Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus user, and Independent Schools Association member.

The Mead School's high-achieving Maths-Whizzers!

Isobel Feaver, Mead’s literacy co-ordinator, year 5 teacher and all-round whizz herself is a champion of online maths tutoring; The Mead School has seen great successes on her watch.

Isobel describes how Maths-Whizz is making a difference at The Mead School:

By working on Maths Whizz both at home and at school every single child is developing and pushing forward their own ability in Maths in addition to all the fantastic Mathematics teaching that they receive at school.

Isobel used our Maths-Whizz Tutoring for Schools report tool to record each pupil’s weekly usage for the last three months. She then identified the child in each class who had improved the most (see pic).

As Isobel said: “Every Mead child deserves a pat on the back for all their hard work this term.”

We couldn’t agree more!

But this one, from Google’s Chrome OS team, is worth a look for two reasons:

You can watch the video in its five-minute entirely below, and read the puzzle solution at the Chrome OS blog, here.

Yet another reason to improve your maths with our online maths tutoring – score a free computer!

[via engadget]

The OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) is a kind of fancy club for 34 countries committed to “[stimulating] economic progress and world trade” (Wikipedia).

Part of its remit is to follow trends in education, particulary literacy, numeracy, and scientific understanding. Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment), the OECD’s body devoted to this task, has released results from its 2009 assessments, comparing those three skills across member nations.

As any fule kno, learning is good for you, and good for the country, too. So the latest Pisa educational rankings make for depressing reading.

According to The Guardian’s Datablog, the UK has fallen several places since the 2006 study (the first to include the UK):

The UK is ranked 25th for reading, 28th for maths and 16th for science. In 2006, when 57 countries were included in the study, it was placed 17th, 24th and 14th respectively. Poland has stretched ahead of the UK in maths, while Norway is now ranked higher in reading and maths.

This translates, according to Pisa’s prosaic rating system, as ‘average’ in mathematics and reading, and marginally ‘above average’ in science.

That three countries have ratified the OECD treaty since 2006 (and might, therefore, have shot ahead of us) provides cold comfort – Slovenia, Israel, and Chile all rank below the UK.

The Pisa findings don’t quite match the 2008 report of the other international education rating body, TIMMS, which indicated that the UK was rising up the leagues in key subjects.

But these results nonetheless do little to burnish our self-described reputation for excellence in education, and they throw up some depressing additional facts.

You can find these in their UK-specific report which points to the UK’s larger-than-normal difference between best and worst students, and includes a sad aside:

…77% of the between-schools differences in student performance in the United Kingdom is explained by differences in socio-economic background.

Only Luxembourg surpasses us for class-based educational inequality. So, in fact, you CAN get a top-flight education in the UK – as long as you’re wealthy.

Worse still, according to Pisa “only seven OECD countries spend more per student than the United Kingdom.” This poor performance seems to be in spite of expensive efforts to improve education, and the constant tinkering of politicians.

Is there any good news? The UK is at the forefront of investment in educational methods, and Maths-Whizz Tutoring is part of that progress.

We can’t – yet – take any credit for any rise or fall in the UK’s international reputation, but we can say that we know what we do works, and we know that we do it at a fraction of the cost of private tutoring – the kind that gives children better life chances and greater confidence in such a vital subject.

But, returning to the Pisa results: If, as we’ve said before, maths skills mean a stronger economy, then this news bodes well for none of us.

Get started with our very own seasonal maths games, quizzes, and interactive toys to keep you busy through the frosty Advent.

The Whizz Winter Adventure will be available until 6th January.

Make Your Own Snowman!

If you’ve logged into your maths tutoring account since yesterday, you’ll have noticed The Whizz Winter Adventure in the student bedroom.

Whizzers earn Winter Adventure stars for passing maths lessons. They can spend those stars on our interactive games and quizzes. But Maths-Whizzers can build their own snowman straight away!

The God of Whizz has made his own rather smart-looking snowman (above), but he’s even more excited about our forthcoming feature – the WhizzMe avatar builder!

WhizzMe - WhizzYou?

WhizzMes are coming soon. Every Whizzer will soon be able to create their own avatar – an electronic likeness – with hairstyles, accessories, fancy outfits, and goofy faces.

The Maths-Whizz Team has already made some WhizzMes, which you can check them out on the Whizz Education Our People page.

Watch this space for news about WhizzMe, and get busy with your Winter Adventure games!

We’ve added a bunch of new features and we’ve made some key changes, some at the specific request of our users.

The new Maths-Whizz parent dashboard!

Read on to find out more!

Login to your Maths-Whizz account now and check out the changes!

With maths, you can unleash the power of the elements, land men on the moon, become a musical satirist, predict elections, help defeat wartime enemies, make pumpkin pie, predict the future, win the premier league, program computer games, and more.

With good maths you’ll even earn more money.

But now an OECD report has indicated the importance of maths for a healthy economy.

The level of mathematical knowledge among the general population was found to have a direct relation to Gross Domestic Product.

In other words – learn maths, end the recession!