Maths Wars

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euler%27s_formula.png

"Maths Wars" refers to the tension between instruction and construction in teaching/learning

The following interesting quote came via Artichoke

"Many of those wanting to build relational understanding with students assume that spending time on rote procedural knowledge is an important precursor for developing deeper conceptual understanding. This seems like a common sense approach – a let’s keep a foot in both camps kind of approach. However, research findings in math education suggest otherwise (Pesek and Kirshner 2000). It seems more likely that, in maths education at least, time spent building prior instrumental understanding is an interference to, not an aid to, developing relational understanding."

Interesting because Australia schools at least seem to spend a lot of time on rote procedural knowledge in mathematics.

More on Pesek and Kirshner 2000

"Students who received the procedural instruction prior to the conceptual instruction learned less than did students who received only the conceptual instruction. Somehow, exposure to routine application of formulas inhibited or interfered with students' subsequent conceptual learning."

It still seems likely to me that the best teaching will incorporate both solid procedural knowledge and problem solving in authentic and relevant contexts. This study does not destroy that belief, but it does sound a warning that you can't just mix a bit of both and always get good results.

Interest in game programming by country

Here is an analysis of the interest in the educational use of computer game programming by country using Clustrmaps http://clustrmaps.com

	total	Australia	UK&Ireland	USA
Pop million		20	60	283
http://www.mindtools.tased.edu.au/gamemaker/default.htm	8780	3070	550	6640
hits/million pop			9	23
http://www.freewebs.com/schoolgamemaker/	887	765	55	575
hits/million pop			0.9	2.0
http://www.gamelearning.net/	2955	270	550	1405
hits/million pop		13.5		5.0

It is obvious that you cannot use a site's map to gauge relative interest in a topic in its host country, there's a strong "home town" effect. It is interesting that the 2 Australian sites both found that interest per capita was twice as high in USA as UK. Then, based on one site, Australian interest per capita was almost 3 times as high as USA.

Another analysis can be done with http://www.google.com/trends . Note that statistics for search terms are normalised on a % of searches basis. If a city rates highly its not because it has more searches of that term but that term is more likely to be used in its total of searches.

Search gamemaker:

1.	Brisbane Australia
2.	Amsterdam Netherlands
3.	Adelaide Australia
4.	Perth Australia
5.	Auckland New Zealand
6.	Melbourne Australia
7.	Stockholm Sweden
8.	Sydney Australia
9.	Helsinki Finland
10.	Seattle, WA USA

Note that Estonia wins on a per country basis and Australia comes third (I dont understand)

Australian cities, notably Brisbane win on Constructivism, Metacognition and Pedagogy. Interestingly if you search instruction or instructional, USA fills all 10 top places but for instructional design, India wins.

I also had fun with war/peace, love/hate etc. Its also fun to look at time trends