The Jasper Adventures

My initial feeling upon reading about the "Jasper" problem-solving mathematical videos was excitement. I have always considered myself to be mathematically-challenged. I find word problems to be difficult and the endless drilling of the basic problem sets to be too tedious for words.

I think I would have been a child who benefited from Jasper's anchored instructional approach - one that colorfully camouflages classroom instruction in a carefully crafted enviroment that allows active engagement in complex problem solving skills by groups of students with the teacher providing guidance rather than monopolizing the central teaching arena. Instead of mere rote instruction, Jasper's anchored approach exposes more complicated problems requiring subdvision into smaller parts as well as teaching the base units.

I can see many advantages of utilizing the Jasper Woodbury Adventures as a teaching device. To begin with, these mathematical adventures are based on audio-visual technology rather than paper and ink. While, I excelled at reading in grade school, I think that watching a math problem on video would have been much more fun than simply reading it in a textbook. (From person experience, for instance, I remember being shown the video "Donald Duck in Mathematical Land" when I was in third grade. For me, seeing was believing and for the first time certain geometric mathematical concepts made sense.) Moreover, presenting these math problems in an audio-visual format not only allows children to actually physically visualize them, but it also, as Chapter Four states, removes the "reading barrier" (p. 70) that might separate poor performers from the academically more advanced.

I further applaud how the best teaching approach of Jasper materials, the "Guided Generation Model," (Ch. 4 , p. 61 & Jasper Experiement, p. 76) encourages placing children in groups. This way they are not competing against each other as they solve problems, but rather colaborating amongst themselves so an attitude of encouragement is fostered. Chapter Four also made note of how the overall complexity of the Jasper problems meant that nonmathematically inclined students also had important facts to contribute as well. (p. 70)

I also liked how the Jasper creators learned from their so-called "SMART Challenges" (Ch. 4, p. 72) to implement their Jasper "analogs" and "extensions" since they realized students were still exhibiting some degree of "functional fixedness" (Ch. 4, p. 74) instead of being able to adequately transfer their learned problem-solving techniques and formulas. (In other words, they were somewhat context dependent upon the original Jasper episode in solving problems.)

However, the addition of the analogs and extensions seemed like an excellent idea to me. Through use of analog, the teacher could propose variations upon the original Jasper theme, thus helping to students to practice and drill and new concept in a way that is fun and interesting. Moreover, the use of extensions is an invaluable tool in helping teachers to show their students how the subject of mathematics crosses over into other genres, particularly "historica and current events." (Jasper Experiment, p. 71)

The entire time I was reading these two pieces on Jasper, I was struck by its seeming similiarity to an old computer game called "The Oregon Trail" by The Learning Company. It provides a way of teaching history through practical experience. The player is head of a wagon company. Complex decisions of how to budget money, how much food to take, etc. must be all be factored in. The Oregon Trail teaches about history while drawing upon other scholastic disciplines as well such as social studies, math, geography, etc. While The Oregon Trail is now considered old-time stuff, the popularity of sim games now abound, such as Sim City which allows the player to plan his or her own city. There are also the "Tycoon" games, which are much the same. The concept of such games remind me of Jasper.

However, I must puzzlement regarding the Jasper Woodbury adventures. If the videos proved so helpful to fifth graders and garnered such a positive response, while were only 12 episodes ever made? Moreover, when I checked the U-M library system to see if we owned them, I discovered to my dismay that we did not. To my astonishment, when I checked with WorldCat, I saw that only 19 libraries worldwide owned the Jasper series. I do not understand how something that seems so positive could have seemingly fizzled out?