Intent vs. Impact

In reading the chapters on Amber Hill and Phoenix Park one idea became remarkably clear, the intent of our teaching does not always have the desired impact. The teachers at Amber Hill cared about their students’ success, and chose their teaching methods as their way to bring about maximum success in mathematics. They felt that the structure of the lessons and the division of students in sets allowed for maximum opportunities for students to be successful. Teachers at Phoenix Park also were concerned with their students’ achievement and used a remarkably different set of teaching strategies to ensure that students were successful. The connection between intent and impact was there at Phoenix Park, but Amber Hill’s intent and impact were disjointed. Students at Amber Hill were not successful, they had difficulty with mathematics not only in test situations but in real world workings as well, they saw math as rule governed and isolated, and assumed that if you couldn’t remember the rules or figure out which rule to use, then you had little chance of succeeding in mathematics. Phoenix Park students on the other hand were far more successful in both test situations and real world application of math skills, they saw the connections and even if they did not immediately have a strategy to use they were able to work through problems and projects building on existing knowledge.


How often do we teach something, assess it, and although a large number of students may still be struggling with a concept we move on, hoping perhaps that they will eventually get it. The intent of our teaching has to change from having our students “get it” to having our students understand it and use it. Skills in isolation are of little use to our students, they must be given frequent and varied opportunities to use these skills, to think about the connectedness of mathematics and forget the rules and think about it on their own.

What was it a wise man once said about good intentions......