WANTED: An Apollo Program for Math

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From Stanford [Magazine - a publication of the Stanford Alumni Association], May/June 2010, p. 32. See http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/edblog/edblog-wanted-an-apollo-program-for-math/1660/

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WANTED: An Apollo Program for Math

By Keith Devlin, Stanford University

The US ranks much worse than most of our economic competitors in the mathematics performance of high school students.

We now have the knowledge to turn that around. We could raise the level of mathematics performance across the board, within a single school generation, so that we are number one in the world. All it would take is a one-time, national investment of $100 million over a five-year period. That's what it would cost to build and put in place a system that could achieve that change, with the existing school system and the existing teachers. Once built, that system would be self-sustaining.

That sounds like a lot of money for an upfront investment. But thought of as a national initiative, it's peanuts. The payoff for the nation's health and future prosperity is far greater than the long term benefits we got from the far greater investment in NASA's Apollo Program to put a man on the Moon.

I don't think it's going to happen in this way, but not because people don't think it's a good idea. Rather, it would probably require a combination of nonprofit and for-profit funding that our system does not allow.

The same goal can, and surely will, be attained. But it will take a lot longer.

I'll tell you, briefly, what the approach is, how I am so sure it will work, and where I got that cost figure. Everything I say is based on work that has already been done.

First, let me tell you who I am.

I'm a mathematician at Stanford who directs a multidisciplinary think tank called the H-STAR institute, that looks at issues involving human sciences and new technologies, with a view to improving technology design and use, including applications of technology in education at all levels. (I'm also the Math Guy on National Public Radio.)

What I want to tell you about is connected with the H-STAR institute, but is based on some work I've just completed as an individual, working with a large software company in Silicon Valley.

We have spent the past four years looking to see if we can use the range of today's technologies to improve the dismal math performance level of the nation's high school students.

The slide in math performance among US children occurs during the age range 8 to 13. Essentially the middle-school years. That was the target group for our study.

Many attempts have been made to improve US middle-school mathematics education, but all have failed to achieve the desired results. I think the reason is clear. They have all focused on improving basic math skills.

In contrast, I (and a great many of my colleagues) believe the emphasis should be elsewhere. Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world. Get the thinking right and the skills come largely for free.

There are two reasons why the focus has been on skills. First, many people, even those in positions of power and influence don't understand what mathematics is and how it works. All they see are the skills, and they think, wrongly, that is what mathematics is about. (Given that for most people, their last close encounter with mathematics was a skills-based school math class, it is not hard to see how this misconception arises.)

The other reason is more substantial. For over two thousand years, the only way to provide mathematics education to the masses was through the written word. Textbooks. But in order to learn mathematical thinking from a textbook, you have to approach it via the skills. That means you have to master the skills first.

But as I already remarked, mathematics is not about acquiring basic skills or learning formulas. It's a way of thinking. It's not about things you know, it's something you do. And the printed word is a terribly inefficient way to learn how to do something.

The best way for an individual to learn how to do something is, as the Nike slogan says, "Just do it!"

Until now, learning by doing was not a viable approach to mathematics education. It was possible one-on-one, by an apprenticeship system, but not on a broad scale. Now it can be done.

We now have the know-how to raise the mathematical performance of our nation's schoolchildren in the 8 to 13 age-range to the top of the world rankings in a single school generation.

The method is simulation. That's the way we train pilots to fly aircraft, the way we train astronauts to fly the shuttle and to work in the Space Station, the way we train surgeons, and the way the US Army trains soldiers before they go anywhere near the battlefield.

And that's the way we should train young people to think mathematically.

The technology to do that has been provided to us by the leisure and entertainment industries. Basically, it's videogame technology and Web 2.0 infrastructure.

No one has yet tried to do this on the scale that is required. Yes, there are a lot of so-called math ed videogames out there. Lots of them are very superficial, some are more thoughtfully designed. But they all focus primarily on skills. They use the compelling nature of videogames as a wrapper for conventional curriculum, to try to get kids to learn and practice the basic skills. But as I've noted, mastery of skills does not lead to mathematical thinking.

For over two thousand years, mastery of mathematical skills had to come before developing the higher level thinking because we did not have simulators. All we had was books. Now we know how to build simulators.

Based on the work I and my colleagues have done over the last four years, we have a pretty good sense of what it would take to build such a simulator. That's where I get my figure of $100 million over five years. Building the simulator in the first place would cost around $50 million. (That was the cost of building World of Warcraft.) The remaining amount is what it would cost to build the infrastructure to support and maintain the system for use across the nation. Once in place, it could be self-sustaining through user subscriptions.