Last week, I posted on Twitter when a highly engaging math app went on sale for 60% off. I didn’t oversell it by any means:
It’s just drill and kill simple math facts with fancy graphics and music but it’s fun.
I’m torn on whether to mention the name of the app here (I will list all the apps we use in a future post). However, imagine an app with a first class movie soundtrack, mission impossible-like graphics, and an excitement that is not present in many other apps. Yes, I do consider it “drill and kill” but as an app of this kind, it’s best in class.
I received this self-righteous response from a twitterer I don’t know and won’t mention:
How can anyone consider drill and kill fun? Lets move onward & stop promoting these kind of apps!
I don’t consider this particular app fun. My math intervention students do.
The twitterer went on to tell me that what I was doing was “immoral” and suggested I have students make an iMovie or Doodlecast about how they found their answers instead.
Let me back up and explain a little bit how I used the app. With our single iPad hooked up to a projector at the beginning of class, my intervention students trickled in from recess, students shouted out answers to questions as they came up on the screen. I sometimes guided students to count backward 9-2 or count up 9-5. We discussed adding and subtracting doubles (3+3, 8-4) and near-doubles (3+4, 8-5). Then as a treat, small groups of students used the iPad individually to complete some of the games.
If we bought the iPads just to do games like these I would say that we’ve wasted a lot of money. The first PD I lead for teachers on using the iPads (after the one about how to turn the device on) is how to use iMovie. I begin the PDs discussing both Bloom’s Taxonomy and Needleman’s Technology Taxonomy:
However, to say that we should not use any apps that encourage the memorizing of facts stinks to me of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I wrote a post Are You Smarter Than a Google Search? suggesting that how you collect, synthesize, and apply knowledge is more important than having it memorized. However, the idea that you don’t need to have any knowledge at all is ridiculous. While I encourage kindergarten teachers to teach the meaning of numbers (e.g. 3 is 2 and 1 more) in addition to teaching students to count. However, I also see that students who do not know basic math facts struggle when doing anything else related to math.
“Drill and Kill” is just one of the many things you can do on an iPad. If it’s the only thing you’re doing then you might as well invest in a good set of flashcards. I don’t want it to be the toolbox but I do think it has a place in the toolbox.
If you think I’m doing it all wrong. Let me know in the comments.
Also worth reading is Diane Darrow’s mapping of iOS apps to Bloom’s Taxonomy.
I have 2nd graders. A couple of weeks ago several of them explained to me that multiplication is adding the same number over and over again and division is is splitting numbers into equal groups. They taught themselves this via a couple of different “drill and kill” apps.
Kids need to memorize their basic math facts. They should understand numbers and why 2 + 7 = 9 or 2 x 2 = 4 but at the end of the day they need to have them memorized.
Thank you for your comment. You make a good point that it is possible to go from memorizing facts to understanding the concepts behind them.
I do wonder whether students need to memorize facts or whether they just need to be able to solve problems quickly and if there’s a difference between the two.
I do not see a real difference between the two – solving problems quickly and memorizing facts. When I am in different classrooms I see HUGE discrepancies in the facts that our students know. I recently taught in a classroom where the students did not know their math facts (upper elementary and can’t finish 100 2+1, 2+2, etc. facts in three minutes). This is a huge issue for the computation skills. When we are teaching complicated skills and the students fail the quizzes, they aren’t failing because they don’t understand conceptually how to do the work, they are failing because they can’t compute the answer correctly! Remembering and Understanding are integral parts of Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Taxonomy isn’t complete without all the levels. We have to teach memorization to our students, it is a skill that is needed. Memorization isn’t fun, it isn’t fancy, but it is necessary. Then, we can move on to making book trailers and movies and all of the FUN parts of the higher levels of Blooms.
Agreed but for the part about “move[ing} on…to higher levels of Blooms.” My understanding is that all levels of Bloom’s are to be taught at the same time vs sequentially. That is to say, we’re teaching memorization but at the same time we’re teaching analysis and evaluation.
This issue is shot back and forth between the third and fourth grade at our school. Third grade (tradionally) has favored the “don’t memorize, understand” approach to facts. They’re still dealing with the basic 1×1, or 2×1 type problems and they don’t touch division at all unless they’re dealing with pictures. This means that the kiddos come to us to be taught 3×1, or 2×2 or even 3×2 multiplication and 1×3 division. We also branch heavily into Fractions which deal primarily with multiples and factors. With only 1-2 exceptions (because there is always an exception!) the kids who have a solid basis in +, -, x, and / facts are the ones who excel. The kiddos that do not have this firm basis struggle like crazy. Researchers (though, you can ALWAYS find someone who says differently) say that 10 minutes of basic drill in these facts increases students achievement in math because instead of spending 5 minutes counting on using their fingers, they already know the basics of the problem and can work from there.
I agree that students should learn the basics of math. Memorizing the basics is the only way children can learn other material, especially in math. I do not think you are going about this wrong. An iPad can be used for many things, and games is just one of them. Rewarding the children who get the answers correct with time on the iPad actually encourages the children to want to learn. What kid doesn’t want to play on an iPad? All children want a reward for anything they do right.
However, I also agree that iPads shouldn’t be used just for the applications. iMovie is a wonderful tool, and it is very helpful. But in this case, I think you are perfectly right in letting the children learn from the games.
@Anna,
I am a huge fan of using moviemaking in the classroom (see videointheclassroom.com). However, I’m not sure how practical it is to have students make a movie solving a single problem with one iPad to share in a forty minute session. No one is here is throwing out iMovie but I wouldn’t say we should keep iMovie and throw out everything else. If anyone else IS doing that, I’d love it if they’d speak up. Even the person who chastised me for using a skills review math app lists McGraw-Hill’s Everyday Mathematics among her recommended apps. Go figure.
We have a bunch of these drill and kill apps on our iPads. Are they the most exciting thing to me? Not particularly. Do the kids really enjoy them? Yes.
I’d much rather the kids spend a few miutes on an app that they find engaging than watch a teacher waste her time struggling with kids to get them to memorize their facts. Then we can use the other, awesome stuff on the iPads to really extend and shape more meaningful learning.
Any good teacher knows (s)he needs lots of tools in the toolbox- all aimed at different levels of the taxonomy. There are all kinds of learners and we have to be ready for all of them, no matter where they are. If it works, it works, right? (But I would say that anyone who uses an iPad ONLY for drill and kill is missing the whole point- but that’s another post for another day, isn’t it?)
I completely agree with this article. Having basic facts memorized is an important part of learning–factoring equations in algebra, for example, gets ten times easier when you know your multiplication tables. Drilling basic facts early on allows you to free up your mind for higher level thinking later, and if an ipad is a good tool for that, then use it!
What is app and can I get it for another platform? Thanks.
For the purposes of this post, I opted not to mention the name of the app. I will include a post in the future that lists all of the apps we are using.
My daughter is in 1st grade and loves the skill/drill math apps. These apps are so important to foundational skills! Not only is my daughter mastering addition and subtraction, she is moving into multiplication and division. Though these apps appear to be games–and teachers are worried about the stigma attached to skill/drill, they are building the backbone children need to be successful as math progresses to more difficult concepts. My daughter is also beginning to publish work on a blogging site set at http://www.teacherblogit.com. I’m simply amazed that I my daughter, with an ipad as a tool, will write and comment on blogs–memorize math problems on an ipad for fun! I teach AP English Language and Composition as well as an English III class in high school. I know the advanced Calculus students and the Algebra students in 11th grade: I’m encouraging my daughter to play these games! They work!