The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
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Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#2> After the student investigation, the teacher highlights important ideas embedded in a concrete problem, and summarizes and generalizes their findings. In particular, the teacher’s summary makes sense and is meaningful, because students have had the experience of playing around with these ideas on their own before coming together to formalize them as a class.
It's important for students to get their hands on examples and play with the ideas we're trying to present on their own. One issue I have is that this takes so much time. If you're introducing concepts that the students don't have good intuition about, you have to go so slowly. Even then it feels like some students can't follow.
I think it's beneficial when it's possible to get students to engage with the material on a daily basis as reading or homework. Hard to do when they're expected to take 4 classes (college) or 6-8 (high school) and dedicate study time to each of them.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#3I took my first eight years of math in Hungary; admittedly, some time ago. Though I'm not sure if things have changed since then, or were different at higher levels, the way the article describes it very much reflected my experience. Starting out, there was a balanced mix of rote learning the basics (as it was done in other subjects), then moving towards creativity and gradual, independent rediscovery, and it was done so in a way that didn't feel stifling if you somehow knew to do it a different way.
Ultimately it's a small country; there was a math bee you could compete in at a local level, and then your district would send the best representatives to the countrywide event. It was a prestigious event, and pretty stressful, but ultimately fun. The questions asked at the national competition were always really oddball and obscure and required both creativity and judicious use of everything you've learned.
Come think of it, the culture of the competitions in various subjects made school really fun.
Some other aspects of my primary school education in Hungary were not so stellar. In other subjects, there was very much a focus on facts in isolation, without really understanding or delving into context, notably in History. Literature I also found limiting, as much emphasis was placed on poetry analysis, which I found to be subjective; nonetheless, diverging from commonly accepted analyses was did not result in a good mark. When I came to the US, I found an emphasis on critical thinking in the Humanities, which was a breath of fresh air.
But in math and science, the quality and method of instruction in Hungary was top-notch.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#4I took my first eight years of math in Hungary; admittedly, some time ago. Though I'm not sure if things have changed since then, or were different at higher levels, the way the article describes it very much reflected my experience. Starting out, there was a balanced mix of rote learning the basics (as it was done in other subjects), then moving towards creativity and gradual, independent rediscovery, and it was don…
Why is Hungarian math so forward looking but not the other subjects? Is Hungary especially good at math?
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#5I took my first eight years of math in Hungary; admittedly, some time ago. Though I'm not sure if things have changed since then, or were different at higher levels, the way the article describes it very much reflected my experience. Starting out, there was a balanced mix of rote learning the basics (as it was done in other subjects), then moving towards creativity and gradual, independent rediscovery, and it was don…
Why is Hungarian math so forward looking but not the other subjects? Is Hungary especially good at math?
It's difficult to generalize, but by pretty much any metric you choose Hungary produced a massively disproportionate share of the outstanding mathematicians of the twentieth century.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#6> After the student investigation, the teacher highlights important ideas embedded in a concrete problem, and summarizes and generalizes their findings. In particular, the teacher’s summary makes sense and is meaningful, because students have had the experience of playing around with these ideas on their own before coming together to formalize them as a class. It's important for students to get their hands on example…
When you use this approach, you generally cover less material, but cover it better. For most classes, this seems like a good tradeoff.
4 classes isn't really that much. You can essentially replace the time students would normally spend "studying" with them spending that time working on the problems. Further, in my experience, this type of work is far more engaging than traditional studying, so it is easier for students to spend time on it; and the time they do spend tends to be more thoughtfull.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#7I took my first eight years of math in Hungary; admittedly, some time ago. Though I'm not sure if things have changed since then, or were different at higher levels, the way the article describes it very much reflected my experience. Starting out, there was a balanced mix of rote learning the basics (as it was done in other subjects), then moving towards creativity and gradual, independent rediscovery, and it was don…
Why is Hungarian math so forward looking but not the other subjects? Is Hungary especially good at math?
I believe history and literature are sensitive subjects politically, hence the official ways of teaching it are somewhat limiting (intentionally). However, most teachers I had contact with/heard of are exceptionally good, so I guess it comes down to luck.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#8> After the student investigation, the teacher highlights important ideas embedded in a concrete problem, and summarizes and generalizes their findings. In particular, the teacher’s summary makes sense and is meaningful, because students have had the experience of playing around with these ideas on their own before coming together to formalize them as a class. It's important for students to get their hands on example…
I think this approach is better suited to lower level schooling, where kids already spend several years learning and practicing a small number of concepts. Instead of making them do countless calculations and mechanical problems, invest some of that time in abilities that will actually stick with them and be useful in the future.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#9I took my first eight years of math in Hungary; admittedly, some time ago. Though I'm not sure if things have changed since then, or were different at higher levels, the way the article describes it very much reflected my experience. Starting out, there was a balanced mix of rote learning the basics (as it was done in other subjects), then moving towards creativity and gradual, independent rediscovery, and it was don…
Why is Hungarian math so forward looking but not the other subjects? Is Hungary especially good at math?
I would say it's always been a bit of a self-affirming, self-fulfilling trope among Hungarians that Hungarians are good at math and science. Some of it is founded in history, and some of it is (make-believe) national mythos.
But that's just local color; I don't actually know if it's true at all, or any time in the recent past.
Re: The Hungarian Approach and How It Fits the American Educational Landscape (2015)
#10I would to see this approach applied more in the sciences as well.
I my college syntax (linguistics) class, most of the teaching was done by the teacher giving us a (carefully curated) set of data to explain as homework.
Class time was spent making sure everyone got to the same answer and understood the arguments behind it. When there are multiple reasonable answers, they also made sure that students understand the other ones and why we rejected them (sometimes the reason is as simple as 'we need to pick an answer, lets just vote'; other times it is 'both are reasonable explanations, the field went with B, read Chomsky 1987 if you want to know why.'). We would then generally talk about problems we still have (especially if the data was English, and students could come up with new data that didn't work as nicely).