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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must for Those Interested in Learning,
By
This review is from: The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human Potential (Hardcover)
The End of Ignorance contains many of the themes presented in his earlier book, The Myth of Ability. The book is very inspirational and should be on the short list for all educators, especially mathematics teachers. The workbooks that accompany the JUMP mathematics program that is mentioned in the book are now commercially available, although only up until grade 8 at this time.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional treatise on effective mathematics pedagogy,
By
This review is from: The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human Potential (Paperback)
I have a Joint Honours degree in Physics and Mathematics, a Masters degree in Physics, and a Bachelors of Education. I have been teaching Mathematics at the high school level in Ontario for 10 years, and have witnessed first-hand the resistance of administration and government towards effective teaching methods in favour of "fashionable" but ineffective educational theories. I am extremely grateful to John Mighton for sharing his classroom successes, and summarizing the extensive research in neurological science and cognitive psychology that supports these successful methods.Though it is unglamorous, the method of breaking down mathematical algorithms into the smallest steps, practising until mastery is achieved, then incrementally increasing the level of difficulty of these steps (Mighton calls it "raising the bar") is the ONLY way to produce expertise in our students. This teaching method is universally accepted in areas such as sports and music, but for some reason academic endeavour has been treated differently. The proliferation and propagation of teaching methods that are at best inefficient and at worst ineffective and demoralizing for the student has rendered the present generation mathematically illiterate. This is not reassuring in an era of a globalized technological economy. I can only hope that more administrators and public servants in Ontario will read this book, and rescue our Mathematics curriculum before it is too late.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The right direction,
By Eugene Spanier "butthebreathofafirefly" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human Potential (Hardcover)
As a teacher of language I found this book by a math PhD to be enlightening and inspiring. Mighton (who has also published two plays), approaches teaching from a connections perspective i.e. how can we effectively engage students and draw their attention to concepts and exercises that they will eventually find fascinating. As a teacher, Mighton shares his challenges, failures and successes in a frank and reflective style. Easily on par with and perhaps better -considering his insights with respect to recent research- than any book I encountered in professional teaching certification and qualification programs.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
extremely helpful. this book really changed my ideas on how to teach math.,
By C. Ternoey "ct" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human Potential (Paperback)
i just recommended this book to my sister via email.here is the text of my email to her about this book... ... i just want to recommend john mighton to you as an author. i recently read "the end of ignorance" and this book has really changed my view of how (and also why) to teach math. for example,... i was recently having a walk with [my daughter] and said... "do you know how to add 30 plus 40? its not that hard. you just take those zeros off and throw them away. then your left with 3+4, which is easy? yes, 7, thats right. well,.... now put a zero back and its 70, right? so then 30 + 40 must be 70" the book does not directly recommend such a way of teaching addition. but i feel this was in the spirit of the philosophy that the book presents. the general idea is that it is good to teach simple tricks for helping children get to the answers of math problems. they will become proud that they know how to do something "hard". then they will eventually ponder these rules and come to understand why they work in a later stage. and teachers should encourage them to do that pondering at some time but not urgently. (for a more radical example,... consider that he [sometimes] teaches children how to add fractions without knowing what they mean except that they are two numbers with a line in between) anyway,.... i felt i already had a natural intuition for how to teach mathematics. however,... my views have changed a lot since reading that book. give it a try if you can. -c 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Provides needed and inspiring perspective on math education,
By Morsel - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human Potential (Paperback)
As a parent with young children, I became aware of John Mighton's work through a New York Times article on math education. When my 7 year old daughter came home one day with a math work sheet, she announced, "I don't have to get the right answers, I just have to understand why it works," something didn't quite smell right (I told her that it wasn't a question of either/or but both).After reading Mighton's book, I felt the scales fall from my eyes. The historial and cultural perspective he brings to the table along with insight into ideological differences that drive curriculum decisions were fascinating. I did my own research and discovered that in Seattle where we live, the school board had approved Everyday Math despite what paid advisors recommended -- and that Everyday Math is about "conceptual learning". I also learned anecdotally that many teachers here do not strictly teach Everyday Math and supplement it with their own materials. Many parents, especially the socioeconomically advantaged ones, pay for tutors and Kumon math type of support for their kids. So the data around our math scores is profoundly dirty. I later tried to find research, with clean data, about Everyday Math and felt entirely frustrated not to find it (still looking). Mighton's book is a must read and an essential conversation starter for parents, teachers and education policy people alike. I'm grateful it was published. Mighton's sense of raising the bar on society (as well as his students) is a breath of fresh air. As he points out, the fact that someone is willing to say at a cocktail party, "I was never very good at math" but not "I was never very good at reading" is telling. I think that our ability not only to produce great scientists and mathematicians but also to produce a math-literate society who will support these endeavors depends on math curriculum choices we make. And it should be empirically proven that methodologies work, across the board. Whether it turns out the John Mighton's JUMP method is better than other methods will be a matter for people to simply look at the results, as measured in a scientific way. The initial data is very promising and I hope that other methods are equally willing to put their own claimed efficacy under a microscope. |
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