Warning over how kids are taught maths

An audit of university maths courses for teachers has found some serious problems with so-called teaching fads - which experts say is leading to poor results.

Aspiring maths teachers are being taught at university to incorporate fads such as “student-led” learning and classroom games in their teaching – but experts say that is precisely why the nation is performing so poorly in the subject.

Centre for Independent Studies education expert Glenn Fahey believes learning fads are the reason students perform poorly in maths. Supplied

A total of 27 out of 31 universities used student-led learning approaches in their courses on primary school maths teaching, according to an analysis by The Centre for Independent Studies, while no universities used teacher-led approaches – considered most effective in mathematics.

Report co-author Glenn Fahey said university-based teacher educators were failing teachers-in-training.

“There is a risk where new teachers are in the hands of education academics who are in the academic world versus those who are in practice … teachers feel what they learnt in their initial teacher education is actually counter-productive,” he said.

He said explicit instruction was used in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taiwan who were the top performers when it came to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.

The audit found Australian university course handbooks were less focused on how a teacher explicitly explained how to solve maths problems and more concerned with ­faddish concepts of student “inquiry” and “problem-based” learning.

He said better teachers ­employed the techniques of explicit maths instruction but still made the subject fun for children without resorting to gimmicks such as playing games.

Teachers who taught explicit math instruction has more success, experts say.

“Explicit instruction is not just drill and kill at the front of the room, it involves student participation, it involves students being participants in the class,” he said.

“Some of the highly effective explicit instruction teachers demonstrate that when they have students reciting things in the room and responding to problems, that level of engagement is significantly better than group-based work.”

The report also said students should have a strong foundational knowledge of mathematical concepts such as rote-learning times tables.

It noted average PISA scores could lift the academic performance by the equivalent of eight extra months of schooling if explicit instruction was used in schools.

Mr Fahey said the federal Government should remove funding for universities which did not want to promote evidence-based practices when it came to educating future maths teachers.

Originally published as Warning over how kids are taught maths