-=> Quoting Bob Moylan to William Lipp <=-
 WL> If the goal is "understanding and facility,"
 WL> ...
 WL> I think it's obvious that 2 problems in six minutes is inadequate, and
 WL> 1000 problems in 30 seconds is unreasonable.  If 100 problems in the
 WL> allotted time is something that almost all students can master, then
 WL> it's a realistic demonstration of facility.  If only 20% of the kids
 WL> can ever achieve that score, it's not realistic.
 BM> Okay I follow that line .. but what about the ones who can't complete
 BM> the entire number of problems in the allotted time?
At the beginning most (all?) of the kids shouldn't reach the goal.
The point of training for facility would be to have a goal that
was reachable with practice.  They get to keep practicing and working
on it.
 BM> If there is
 BM> built into the way the results are scored so those kids are not
 BM> penalized for not being as fast as the others I'd probably not have a
 BM> gripe.
I'm not a teacher, only an interested parent.  My kid's elementary school
doesn't have grades.  For these particular teachers and kids, it allows
them to keep the focus on learning instead of grades.  I share a concern
for situations where grades and learning are conflicting, but I don't
have any insight about managing that conflict.
 BM> How would (or could) this be applied across disciplines?  I can
 BM> see problems in the sciences, probably language arts too... (I
 BM> obviously do not teach regular ed!)
I can't think of any situations in sciences where the facility for
quick, automatic access to basic facts is valuable.  In language
this is probably correct speech - proper verb forms and plurals and 
word order.  If you live outside of Oakland, this is probably worked
on every time the kids open their mouths.  Are there any cases in
other disciplines analogous to memorization of basic math addition and
multiplication tables?
 
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