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comment left by Lauren:
I'm not a fuzzy math advocate by any means and I agree with most of the warning signs on this list. However, I do not understand why connecting math concepts to real world situations is an indication of a fuzzy math program. My algebra students came alive this year when I showed them how the distance formula is used in programming video games. When I taught middle school, I connected everything from percentages to coordinate pairs to real world examples. Math doesn't have to be abstract and irrelevant. Making real world connections can increase student interest in math which may lead to lower drop out/failure rates.
from Barry:
It depends on how one defines "real world". Those who rail against the so-called rote-ridden, formulaic traditional math, point to problems such as work, distance, and mixture problems as irrelevant to students' interests. Other criticism includes that such problems contain all the information that the student needs, they work out neatly, they don't represent the messiness of problems one encounters in the "real world". The solution, in the reformists' mind, is to present students with assignments requiring them to collect data, come to conclusions about such data that they may or may not be prepared to do.
For example, in one assignment I saw, students were to throw various types of paper airplanes, measure how far they traveled, how long they were in the air, and other parameters. These data were then given to another group of students who then were to come up with a scheme for rating which plane flew "the best."
In the documentation of this assignment, it was evident the students were not familiar with the distance = rate · time formula, though some of the brighter kids seem to stumble on it. The whole assignment was one of stumbling and fumbling, which passes for discovery and further passes for learning. It is neither. That they were engaged is irrelevant. The assignment had no value because they were unable to make connections to previous learned and (hopefully) mastered material.
What you have done in your algebra class does relate to previous learned and mastered material. And the students enjoyed being able to put what they've learned into practice.
But many of these so-called real world assignments are nothing more than data collection and data mongering with some statistics thrown in. Not much application of previously learned material takes place. Nor discovery. Nor learning. But onlookers ooh and ahh when they see how "engaged" the students are.
