A new series: Teaching traditional math

The term “traditional math” or “traditionally taught math” is fraught with images and connotations. The picture that many have when hearing the term “traditional math” is a classroom in which seats are arranged in straight rows, the teacher stands at the front of the room and lectures non-stop for the duration of the class, students learn all procedures and problem solving methods by rote, and no background on the conceptual underpinnings of same are presented. Topics are presented in isolated fashion with no connections with any other topics, so that students are prevented from seeing how one mathematical idea may relate to another. Word problems are dull and uninteresting and students do not feel any desire to try and solve them. They have no bearing on any aspect of students’ lives, and all information needed to solve the problem are contained within the problem itself. Problem sets (commonly called “practice…