kitchen table math, the sequel: another student taking ownership of his learning

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

another student taking ownership of his learning

more from Amazon.com:

Barron's Regents Exams and Answers : Earth Science is one of the most valuable tools in studying for the New York state regents exam in Earth Science. It has many of the past regents to practice from, answers explained, and tips for when you take the regents. In the answers explained section it will tell you why the answer is right and even why other answers are wrong! I got a 95 on the regents with the help of this book. If you are taking Earth Science I would highly recommend that you get this book.

Why have teachers at all?

Just buy the kids a bunch of Barron's test prep books and tell them when and where.


a student taking ownership of his learning
another student taking ownership of his learning

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

How is the book arranged? Does it teach by topic? Is there a bibliography of recommended textbooks?

le radical galoisien said...

Teachers are nice, but since my school doesn't offers a limited range of AP courses, it is necessary for me to self-study the rest myself.

Instructivist said...

This item is from edspresso:

"In recent Associated Press coverage of an appeals court ruling that blocked funding to Wisconsin Virtual Academy, Barbara Stein of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, "objected to the use of tax dollars to support what she called a new form of home schooling...]

This is a curious objection. Many schools expect parents to do much of the teaching that schools should be doing. The NEA's reasoning would put regular schools out of business.

Anonymous said...

It depends on the person, the topic and the familiarity with the material.

SOME people learn very well completely from books, but I think this is more about cramming :), which is what Barron's books specialize on.

If you *only* cram with a test-prep book, chances are you didn't learn much. If you know the stuff, cramming is great reinforcement.

I think formal classes are very useful in many situations (they are to me and to many other people).

Catherine Johnson said...

Hi anonymous!

I was being ironic.

I am STRONGLY in favor of good teachers & excellent curricula!

Catherine Johnson said...

(And, btw, I'm not "against" test-prep books. Barron's is going to get my kid through Earth Science Regents just as it did the reviewers on Amazon. What I would have liked, however, would be to have had a teacher who taught the course as opposed to death-marching the kids through it double-time.)

Anonymous said...

Ever hear of Schaum's Outlines?

Have they gone the way of the dodo? Why did Barron's replace them--were they bought out, or is it name recognition?

I made it through college because of Schaum's Outlines. They just had problem after problem after problem, plus all solutions, so you could just do the problems over and over and over until you got it.

Friends of mine from S. Korea and India say all of their math and science college courses were taught with Schaum's as the textbooks.

Catherine Johnson said...

Thank you!!!!

What a great piece of information.

They're still around. In fact, they're everywhere. (Not sure whether they have high school outlines - I'll check.)

Catherine Johnson said...

That is exactly what I need.

FOR EVERYTHING.

Catherine Johnson said...

The problem with "tutoring" a course at home is that I really do need "aligned" materials - and it takes hours to track down the exact problems I need in resources like Schaum's.

The math teachers who've hired themselves out as tutors have all the Glencoe materials. Glencoe sells zillions of extra practice workbooks along with its textbooks, which the school has just purchased.

One of the teachers told me, last fall, they hadn't even looked in the box yet.

I have quite a few of the materials because I've found them posted free online.

But I don't have the answers.

I resent like he** having to work all the problem sets to try to get my kid through algebra while the teachers can tutor for an hour, collect their hundred bucks, and go home.

Their prep time is close to 0.