YouCubed, the "revolutionary" math education project will hopefully live up to all it has advertised. At a glance, Jo Boaler, the leader of YouCubed, appears to be an expert in the field of math education and has developed this project as a means to "better teach math that will lead to math empowerment, rather than math failure", and to "allow students to see that math will help them in their lives and work".
After hopping on to the "path to better understanding", I can see easily see how the four proposed components of the YouCubed project will be beneficial for both teachers and parents. Starting at "Big Ideas", Boaler plans to provide resources that will begin to get children excited about mathematics, which I believe to be a fantastic starting point for a project of this nature. Furthering their interest, in "Content and Tasks" she plans to clarify important mathematical concepts and provide "engaging" experiences for students in school and at home. "Math and Innovation" is meant to share interesting modern math problems that people are involved with in everyday life; these examples are intended to make math relateable to students and prove to them that mathematical knowledge is useful. The final component, and my personal favorite, is "Tools for PARENTS". Having worked with countless children and their parents, I am well aware of the stress endured by parents in attempting to help their children with homework. The resources that will be available on this site will hopefully alleviate most of these inconveniences, and allow parents to foster rather than hinder their child's learning.
Aside from the framework, after perusing the papers on this site I highly admired Boaler's opinions on the importance of changing attitudes and disociating math with speed. In one particular article, her research has proven that all children are capable of exceptional performance, assuming they sport the right mentality; students need to know that they have potential, and understand that everyone learns from their mistakes! Equally important, there is no doubt that mathematical ability has historically been linked to speed. Boaler presents that speed "damages" math performance and thus should be highly discouraged.
The methods of math education has changed dramatically in recent years. The inquiry based, YouCube project, when up and running, should prove a great resource for teachers and parents. I have "joined the revolution" and hopefully you will too!
Join here...
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