Illustrating Functions

Function definitions aren’t usually tested on either the SAT or the ACT and since I never worked professionally with math, functions were something I’d barely considered in algebra a billion years ago. So for the first few years of teaching, I kind of went through the motions on functions: unique output for each input, vertical line test, blah blah. I didn’t ignore them or rush through them. But I taught them in straight lecture mode.

Once I got out of the algebra I ghetto (which really does warp your brain if that’s all you do), I accepted that a lot of the concepts I originally thought boring or unimportant show up later. So it’s worth my time to come up with the same third way activities and lessons for things like functions or absolute value or inverses that I do for binomial multiplication and modeling linear equations and inequalities.

So every year I pick concepts to transfer from pure lecture/explanation to illustration. Sometimes it’s spur of the moment, other times I plan a formal curriculum change. In the case of functions, the former.

Last year I was teaching algebra II/trig and–entirely in passing–noted a problem in the Holt book that looked something like this:

and had two simultaneous thoughts: what a boring question and hey, I could really do something with that.

So the next day, I tossed this up on the board without comment.

I’ve given these instructions three times now–a2/trig, trigonometry, algetbra 2–and the kids are always mystified, but what the heck, the activity seems simple enough. No student ever reads through the entire list of instructions first. They spend a lot of time picking the message, with many snickers, then have fun translating the code twice.

But then, as they all try to translate someone else’s message using the cell phone code, bam. They realize intuitively that translating the whole-alphabet code would be an easy task. And with a few moments of thought, they realize why the cell phone code doesn’t offer the same simple path. They don’t know what it means, exactly. But the students all realize that I’ve demonstrated a difference that they’d never considered.

From there, I graph the processes, which is usually a surprise as well. The translation process can be graphed?

At this point, I can usually convince kids to remember the Vertical Line Test, which they were taught in algebra I. At that point, I go through the definitions for relation, function, and one-to-one function, using a Venn diagram (something like this with an addition inner circle for one to ones). Then I go back through what the students vaguely remember about functions and link it to the correct code example.

Thus the students realize that translating the message into code is a function in either code key. I hammer this point home, because the most common misconception kids get from this is that all functions must be one to one. Both are functions. Each letter has one and only one number assigned, and the fact that one translation key puts several letters to the same number is irrelevant for its determination as a function. Reversing the process, going from numbers to letters, only one of them is a function.

Then I sketch parabolas and circles. Are they both functions? Are either of them one-to-one functions?

In Algebra 2, I do this long before the inverse unit. In Trig, I introduce it right before graphing the individual functions as part of an overview. In both classes, the early intro gives them time to recognize the significance of the difference between a function and the more limited case of the one-to-one function–particularly in trig, since the inverse functions are very limited graphs for exactly the reason. In algebra II, the graphs reinforce the meaning of the Horizontal Line Test.

I haven’t taught algebra I recently, but I’d change the lesson by giving them a coded message and ask them to translate with the cell phone code first.

This leads right into function and not-function, which is all they need in algebra I.

I have periodically mentioned my mixed feelings about CPM. Here’s a classic example. The CPM book introduces functions with the following example.

Okay. This is a terrible example. And really boring. Worst of all, as far as this non-mathie can tell, towards the end it’s flat out wrong. A relation can be predictable without being a function (isn’t that what a circle is?). But just looking at it, I got an idea for a great test question (click to enlarge):

And I could certainly see some great Algebra I activities using the same concept. But CPM just sucks the joy and interest out of the great starting ideas it has.

Anyway. I wanted to finish up with a push for illustrations. What, exactly, do the students understand at the moment of discovery in this little activity? I’ve never seen anyone make the intuitive leap to functions. However, they do all grasp that two tasks that until that moment seemed identical…aren’t. They all realize that translating the message in the whole-alphabet code would be a simple task. They all understand why the cell phone code translation doesn’t lend itself to the same easy translation.

I look for illustrative tasks that convince kids to think about concepts. As I’ve said before, the tasks might kick off a unit, or they might show up in the middle. They may demonstrate a phenomenon in math, or they might be problems designed to lead the students to the next step.

The most common pushback I get from math teachers when I talk about this method is “I love the idea, but I don’t have enough time.” To which I respond that pushing on through just means they’ll forget. Well, they’ll probably forget my lessons, too, but–maybe not so much. Maybe they’ll have more of a memory of the experience, a recollection of the “aha” that got them there. That’s my theory, anyway.

There’s no question that telling is quicker than illustrating or letting them figure it out for themselves. Certainly, the illustration should be followed by a clear explanation with much telling. I love explaining. But I’ve stopped kidding myself that a clear explanation is sufficient for most kids.

That said, let me restate what I said in my retrospective: The tasks must either be quick or achievable. They must illustrate something important. And they must be designed to lead the student directly to the observations or principles you want them to learn. It’s not a do it yourself walk in the park. Compare my lesson on exploring triangles with this more typical reform math example. I resist structure in many aspects of my life, but not curriculum.

In researching this piece, I stumbled across this really excellent essay Why Illustrations Aid Understanding by David Kirsh. I strongly recommend giving it a read. He is only discussing the importance of visual illustrations, whereas I’m using the word more broadly. Kirsh comes up with so many wonderful examples (math and otherwise) that categorize many different purposes of these illustrations. Truly great mind food. In the appendix, he discusses the limitations of visually representing uncertainty.

On reading this, I felt like my students did when they realized the cell phone message was much harder to translate: I have observed something important, something that I realize immediately is true and relevant to my work–even if I don’t yet know why or how.

Education: No Iron Triangle

I came from the corporate world, which invented the project management triangle. (“Fast, Good, Cheap: Pick Two.”)

Education has no triangle.

Money, of course, doesn’t work. Just ask Kansas City. Or Roland Fryer, who learned that kids would read more books for money but couldn’t seem to produce higher test scores for cash. Increased teacher salaries, merit pay, reduced class size are all suggestions that either don’t have any impact or have a limited impact….sometimes. Maybe. But not in any linear, scalable pattern.

“Good”? Don’t make me laugh. We don’t have a consensus on what it means. Most education reformers use the word “quality” exclusively to mean higher test scores. Teachers do not. Nor do parents, as Rahm Emanuel, Cami Anderson, Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee have learned. Common Core supporters have had similar moments of revelation.

So until we agree on what “good” is, what a “high quality education” means, we can’t even pretend that quality is a vertex of education’s triangle, even if it existed. We could save a whole lot of wasted dollars if people could just grasp that fact.

Time is an odd one. We never use the word directly, but clearly, politicians, many parents, and education reformers of all stripes believe we can educate “faster”. Until sixty years ago, calculus was an upper level college course. Once the high school movement began, fewer than 3% of students nationwide took trigonometry, between 10-20% took geometry, and the high point for algebra was 57%–over one hundred years ago–then declining to 25%. (Cite.) One of the little noted achievements of the New Math movement was to alter the math curriculum and make high school calculus a possibility. At first, just kids with interest and ability took that path. Then someone noticed that success in algebra I predicted college readiness and everyone got all cargo cult about it. By the turn of the century, if not earlier, more of our kids were taking advanced math in high school than at any point in our history.

And that was before kids started taking algebra in seventh grade. Sophomores take now take honors pre-calculus so they can get a second year of AP calculus in before graduation. Common Core has gone further and pushed algebra 2 down into algebra I.

Yet 17 year old NAEP scores have been basically stagnant for the same amount of time our high school students have been first encouraged, then required, to take three or more years of advanced math.

Not only do we try to educate kids faster, we measure their gain or loss by time. Poor kids of uneducated parents lose two months learning over the summer. CREDO, source of all those charter studies, refers to additional days of learning. Everyone comparing our results to Singapore always mentions the calendar, how much earlier their kids start working with advanced math. These same people also point out that Singapore has a longer school year. Longer school years don’t appear to work reliably either.

Except maybe KIPP, whose success is mostly likely due to extended school hours. KIPP focuses on middle school and has not really been scrutinized at the high school level. Scrutiny would reveal that the program doesn’t turn out stellar candidates, and while more KIPP alumni complete college than the average low income black or Hispanic student, the numbers are reasonable but not extraordinary when compared against motivated students in the same category who attended traditional schools. Particularly given the additional support and instruction hours the KIPP kids get.

So KIPP’s “success” actually adds weight to the NAEP scores as evidence that time–like money and quality–doesn’t respond to the project management constraints.

Kids learn what they have the capacity to learn. Spending more instruction hours will–well, may–help kids learn more of what they are capable of learning in fewer school years. But the NAEP scores and all sorts of other evidence says that learning more early doesn’t lead to increased capacity later. And so, we’ve moved 1979 first grader readiness rules to preschool with considerable success, but that success hasn’t given us any traction in increasing college readiness at the other end of childhood. Quite the contrary.

I probably don’t have much of a point. I was actually thinking about the increasing graduation rates. It’ll be a while until part 2. I’m swamped at work, moving again, writing some longer pieces, and really would like to post some math curriculum rather than detangle my mullings.

But the triangle thing is important. Really.

Take note: under 1000 words. Hey, I have to do it every year or so.

Group Work vs. Working In Groups

I sit my kids in groups. But I don’t like “group work”.

No, that’s not a paradox. Sitting in groups isn’t “group work”.

Group work is an activity that falls under the larger rubric of “collaborative learning”, an organizing bubble to collect techniques and strategies like “Think Pair Share”, jigsawing, peer tutoring, and the like. The most fully-realized collaborative learning pedagogy is probably complex instruction, which was developed by Elizabeth Cohen. (That’s CI, not CISC.) To illustrate, CPM curriculum is based on complex instruction, whereas Everyday Math is not.

Complex Instruction had been in development for over 20 years, by the time it caught on  in the early 90s. Jeannie Oakes’ book Keeping Track, a broadside against any sort of ability grouping.  Oakes accused parents and schools of racial discrimination, an argument that found favor with many schools and teachers. Those schools that weren’t favorable to the argument faced lawsuits or the threat of one. A good chunk of the 90s was wasted as districts and states desperately tried to win her approval, and adopting the CI method was often adopted as the strategy. Fortunately, they all ultimately learned it was easier to disappoint her.¹

Complex Instruction was also developed by tracking opponents, but opponents who nonetheless cared about learning. It’s explicitly designed to give schools a tool for the havoc that results when kids with a 3 to 8 year range in abilities are put in the same room, and thus was grabbed at by many schools back in the early 90s. Many CI concepts are also found in “reform math”—Jo Boaler’s Railside study on San Lorenzo High School was all about Complex Instruction. Carlos Cabana and Estelle Woodbury, who just co-authored Mathematics for Equity, a book on teaching math with Complex Instruction, both worked at San Lorenzo High School during Boaler’s study.

So start with the theory, articulated here by Rachel Lotan, the late Cohen’s key associate. You should watch this, or at least fast forward through parts, because Lotan clearly articulates the admirable goals of complex instruction minus the castigation, blame, and fuming ideology. Or, Complex Instruction’s major components in written form:

Both Lotan and the writeup offer much that is problematic. Reducing the ability range: not good. Creating busywork tasks (writing down questions, getting supplies) to let everyone feel “smart”: not good.

The write up mentions “status problems”. Lotan gives a great account of an absurdly pretentious term, “mitigating status” that is something every teacher in every classroom–no matter how they are seated—should take seriously. Lotan does a better job of explaining it, but since many won’t listen to the video, here’s a written version:

CI targets equity and, in particular, three ideas: first, that all students are smart; second, that issues of status—who is perceived as smart and who is not—interfere with students’ participation and learning; and third, that it is teachers’ responsibility to provide all students with opportunities to reveal how they are smart and develop/recognize new ways of being smart. The complex instruction model aims to “disrupt typical hierarchies of who is ‘smart’ and who is not” (Sapon-Shevin, 2004) by promoting equal status interactions amongst students so that they engage with tasks that have high cognitive demand within a cooperative learning environment.

(emphasis mine)

Ed schools wanting to hammer home how putting kids in groups doesn’t by itself address status usually show this video, but brace yourself. I tell myself that the ignored kid is probably a pest all the time, that everyone in the class is tired of his nonsense, that we’re just seeing a carefully culled selection to maximize the impact of exclusion and of course, race. It doesn’t matter. It’s still hard to watch.

And the video also reinforces the practical message that CI advocates are pushing, as opposed to the theory. In theory, status can be unearned by anyone of any gender or color. In practice, most CI advocates expect teachers to shut down white males. In theory, kids learn that everyone is smart. In practice, kids still know who’s “smart” and who’s not.

But then, CI advocates have their own frustrations. In theory, they’d put teachers in PD designed to indoctrinate them into realizing the error of their racist ways. In practice, teachers who haven’t already drunk the Koolaid either politely fake it until they can find an exit or get really annoyed when they’re called racists, as an excerpt for Mathematics for Equity makes clear:

Cite: Mathematics for Equity¹

Complex Instruction done well is pretty interesting and often thought-provoking. Cathy Humphreys is a long-time advocate of “reform math” and complex instruction. She was at the center of one of those “rich educated parents” meltdowns that you saw over reform math back in the 90s. Humphreys represented the reform side, of course, and further endeared herself to parents by proposing to get rid of tracking at a Palo Alto, CA middle school. That went over like a water balloon down a balcony, she quit, worked as a math coach for a while, and then taught for years at a diverse high school in the Bay Area that had ended tracking. She also teaches at Stanford’s education program, according to her bio. Carlos Cabana, one of the co-authors of Mathematics for Equity, has also been teaching complex instruction for a long time; he’s one of the teachers at Railside, Jo Boaler’s pseudonym for San Lorenzo High School.

You can see both Humphreys and Cabana here at a website put together by the Noyce Foundation to promote the 8 essential practices. (Notice the link between “reform math” and supporting “common core”? As Tom Loveless says, Common Core is a “dog whistle” for reform math. Humphreys and Cabana are teaching high school math in the videos. You can also see Humphreys teaching at what I assume is the middle school that melted down. Humphreys and Cabana are much better demonstrations of complex instruction than the absurdly flashy promos that Jo Boaler puts out.

When I began teaching, I thought sitting kids in groups was absurd. I remember being pleased one of my mentoring teachers put kids in rows. But my primary student teaching assignment required me to sit kids in groups, as we were using CPM, a reform text that requires groups. I adjusted and liked it much more than I thought I would, especially when I took over the class and could group by ability. But my first year out, I happily put my desks in rows, thinking that groups were good, but now I could finally run my class the way I wanted.

Four weeks later, I put the kids in groups. It just….felt better. Year 2, I was teaching all-algebra, all the time, and thought rows would make more sense. The rows lasted 2 weeks and since around September of 2010, the only time my kids sit in rows is for tests.

I have….mixed feelings about CI. When promoted by the fanatic adherents, it’s both Orwellian and despicable. Teachers have to squelch kids who know the answer, force kids who understand the concept to explain, endlessly, to the kids who don’t, and then grade the kids who know the answer not on their demonstrated knowledge but on the success of their explanation and their willingness to do so. Teachers have to pretend to their students that asking a good question or taking notes is just as important as understanding the math (no, say the fanatic adherents, teachers aren’t pretending. These tasks are just as important!).

But while no student is ever going to believe that everyone is smart, “issues of status” do absolutely impact a students’ willingness to participate. Let the “smart kids” talk, everyone thinks, and sits back and zones out.

However, in my opinion and experience, CI methods often achieve exactly what they are defined to avoid, precisely because of their Orwellian insistence on ignoring reality. Kids know who is smart. They shut down if the smart kid is in their group, and go through the motions when the teacher walks by.

Ironically, I “mitigate status” by violating Complex Instruction’s most sacred tenet. Complex Instruction holds that student groups must be heterogeneous. Organization can’t be based on the rigid, academic version of “smart”. But I group my kids by ability as the most effective way of “mitigating status”.

I don’t want the weakest students in my class feeling as if any success short of an “A” is irrelevant. I also don’t want to try and convince them they’re just as “smart” as students who don’t struggle with the same material. That way, my students know that they can talk about math, what they need to know, what questions they have, knowing that other students probably have similar issues.

I don’t want to make it sound as if “mitigating status” is the only reason I sit kids in groups. Groups allow me to differentiate tasks slightly (or extensively) and enables me to quickly give help or new tasks. Groups allow kids to work together, discussing math, developing at their own speed with peers who have similar abilities.

But whether it’s status or some other curricular reason, when I sit them in groups, they start working and talking about math. They discover they are working with peers who won’t make them feel stupid, and they start to have discussions. Should we do this or this? They call me over to adjudicate. They try things. They check their notes, engage in all those excellent student behaviors. Not always, of course. But many times. They are less likely to sit passively and wait until I come by to personally tutor them through problems.

Moreover, because they are working with students of their own ability, they don’t feel alone or stupid. They work to improve. Maybe not great, maybe not good. But better.

Sitting kids in groups is not group work. But sitting kids in groups based on ability and giving them achievable tasks makes them more likely to work, and as math teachers often know, that’s no small thing.

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¹ I was thinking crap, I don’t want to have to look up the whole history of the ebb and flow of tracking and then went hey, Tom Loveless has to have something on this and by golly he does: The Resurgence of Ability Grouping and Persistence of Tracking covers the whole era, Oakes included. I would only quibble slightly with this sentence: Although the call to detrack was not accompanied by conventional incentives—the big budgets, regulatory regimes, and rewards and sanctions that draw the attention of policy analysts—detracking was, in a field famous for ignored or subverted policies, adopted by a large number of schools.

Loveless appears to forget the biggest incentive of all: lawsuit avoidance. Detracking lawsuits were the rage in this time period. Unlike new curriculum or teaching styles, detracking is achieved by executive fiat by district superintendents. No training, no carrots needed. Shazam! But leaving aside that minor quibble, a great piece documenting the move to and then the move away from heterogeneous classrooms (de-tracked).