Investigations Math: Extra Credit

◦What is investigations math? Investigations Math is a program where the students discover mathematics for themselves instead of being taught it. It has been found that it does not help the students grow in their understanding of math; in fact, it take them back grades. It removes all teachings of the times tables and memorization of math facts.
◦What were the results of its use in Alpine? In the Alpine School District, they have been patching this program every year for 4 years, as it was implemented 5 years ago. They know the program has major weaknesses and they are under the false impression that you can turn a 40 horse-power car into a hot rod if you just put enough other corvette body parts on the vehicle. It's the ENGINE that is the problem. You would be far better off replacing the core engine and later patching anything you felt was still an issue. Even the district curriculum specialist said it's not a matter of "if" they'll change the program, but "when."
◦What were the arguments for and against its use? The arguments for it's use are as follows: the games and activities are child-oriented and fun, they build upon some first grade concepts, and it has a math workshop model built into it. Some cons are: TREMENDOUS gaps in our first grade curriculum (missing some MAJOR topics which we need to supplement), for the first year or two you spend a lot of time cutting and organizing, it still requires a lot of prep time, and there's not enough practice time in learning math strategies (worksheets).
◦What is your opinion? After doing the research, I think it's fair to say the cons definitely outweigh the pros. This doesn't sound like something I would want to use in my classroom at all, even though some teachers have found that they like using it with their students. I'm glad I stumbled upon the message board about it (my second source below) because I actually got to read about actual teachers that have used Investigations Math in their classroom, and they all seemed to say both negative and positive things about it. Overall, I didn't get a very good first impression about it because of the first source I looked at (listed below) and I just really hope I don't have to use it in my classroom. I'd like to teach math another way than that.
◦Sources: http://www.oaknorton.com/imathstart.cfm, http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=116091