From what I recall* you’ll find Tabula Digita’s stuff pseudocontext taken to an entirely new level. Think Ninja Math but in a full blown video game environment.

It would be interesting to see your take on it.

*I haven’t played all their games, nor played them extensively. We did not opt to purchase.

Dan,

The evil pseudocontext is all over these examples for sure. But I have a few questions here.

1. In the Ninja Math example, is the point of this game to teach the skill of single digit number addition?

-I would guess not. This seems to be a stage in learning where the concept is understood, but the learner (and or teacher) are looking to add to rote memory. Myself, I’ve got 6+8=14 locked away in my own rote memory. I don’t spend much time contemplating the act of adding in context or in symbolic math. I just simply do it. We know rote memory skills to be important when these students reach such topics as algebra. For example, I don’t want my students contemplating the nature of negative numbers and how to use them when they are designing/solving an equation. The attention should be on the rhetorical or symbolic algebra. The analog version of this might be flash cards. I can’t say that I disagree with this tool (or flash cards) when used at the proper juncture of a students learning.

2. Dress Up Math’s screen shot doesn’t give me enough information to understand what the problem is all about, but I find your effort to match your pseudocontext definition to this activity rather flimsy. “The operation, at last, matches the context. It fails definition #1, though, because there’s no way that pink blouse costs $4.00. Even I know that.”

My question to you is one of cultural relevance. Can you tell me for sure that the places your students shop include items that cost much more than this?

-Recently, I got a few long sleeve workout shirts for 2 Euros (about $2.60) when shopping in Vienna’s main shopping district. I also happened to see several of my affluent students in the same shop. I’m more concerned with the body image messages young girls would get from the character about what is a desired figure.

Finally, I must admit that I don’t care so much for these games either. Why can’t analog solutions do this same task just as well? You don’t have to plug in a sibling/parent/classmate or teacher who is working with you on flash cards or is actually shopping with you. Nor do my analog tools such as flash cards require charging.

I’m curious to look at the issue from the other end: what harm does pseudocontext do? What harm does badly-applied real context do? (Are the 2 kinds of harm different in kind or only in degree?) I know what harm I *suspect* it does. Can we document it?

I read a study recently and have been wondering if it answers these questiosn. It documented university physics students’ “common sense” assumptions about motion (http://modeling.asu.edu/r&e/Hestenes_CommonSenseConcept.pdf). It’s 25 years old but I fear still relevant. Conclusions:

– the majority of students entering university hold beliefs about motion that date back to somewhere between 200AD and 1200AD
– When told, during in-depth interviews, that these ideas are incorrect, most students justified their beliefs with increasingly complicated rationalizations
– When presented with physical evidence that contradicted their theories, most students continued to defend their beliefs and further argued that the demonstration must somehow be inapplicable (wrong context??)

Examples of common student assumptions:
– a moving object to which no force is applied will slow down
– heavy objects fall faster than light ones
– a ball swung in a circular path, then released, continues on a circular path “for a short while” before transitioning to a parabolic path
– a puck moving in a parabolic path across an air table would eventually go in a straight line “if the table were long enough”

Here is my theory so far: when math classes distort students’ intuition about the real world, it may not prevent them from doing well in further math courses. It prevents them from doing well in any other course where math is used.

Here is what the authors conclude: “If such misconceptions are not corrected early in the course, the student will not
only fail to understand much of the material, but worse, he is likely to dress up his misconceptions in scientific jargon, giving the false impression that he has learned something about science.”

Pseudocontext at work? I would love to know your thoughts.

Dan, I am a die-hard WCYDWT fan. I’ve been intrigued by the ongoing PS conversation over the past few months.

I have to agree with (3) Jim. When I first saw your examples of Princess Math or Ninja Math, I’m not convinced those games are relaying the dangerous message of pseudocontext: “this is how the world works and this is how we apply math to it.”

I teach second grade, so I work with math learners who are beginning to understand how numbers work. I’m also guiding them toward the realization that knowing what these numbers are when you add them up is something that’s important to know if you want to do other math. And it’s important to know quickly. I stress fact fluency to parents and kids alike, and if a princess tiara (or ninja kick) is going to entice one of my students to practice their facts, then I’m all for it! I may be assuming too much, but I’m not under the impression that students are inferring that tiaras or ninja moves are real world applications of 2+2.

Now, the iLive math (with their peacocks and whatnot) claiming that their software will help the user learn more about animals….that IS a gross misrepresentation of how math applies to the animal kingdom :)

“The operation, at last, matches the context. It fails definition #1, though, because there’s no way that pink blouse costs $4.00. Even I know that.”

Maybe they mean wholesale.