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Everywhere I look, the elementary schools around me use Writer's Workshop. Schools that are adopting Singapore Math are still using Writer's Workshop.
When did it become standard to teach young children writing?
Are there any school program alternatives to Writer's Workshop for grades k-3? Are there any well known schools that haven't felt the need to teach writing per se?
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Royal Coach Lines
email to the Parents Forum:
Hi everyone -
Our son Andrew is autistic. He is entitled by law to a summer program.
He is also entitled by law to bus transportation to the program.
However, as I write, it is 9:16 and Andrew is not at his program.
The reason?
According to the woman at ROYAL COACH LINES: “The driver sat in your driveway for 10 minutes and no one came out. So he called the dispatcher, and the dispatcher told him to leave.”
Note: the driver did not honk.
The reason the driver did not honk: it is illegal. We had no idea. We’ve been sending developmentally disabled kids to school on the bus for decades and the drivers have always honked. In fact, they’ve honked too much. This summer’s driver, whose arrival times have been unpredictable, honks.
BUT honking is illegal, and today’s driver –a sub – did not honk.
Nor did the driver simply step outside his bus and knock on our door. (Is that illegal?)
And the dispatcher did not call us once he’d heard from the driver.
In short, no one associated with ROYAL COACH LINES took initiative; no one went beyond the call of duty. No one took responsibility for actually doing the job we hire ROYAL COACH LINES to do.
And no one expressed the slightest regret that the job was not done. I spoke at some length with the lady who answered the phone at ROYAL COACH LINES. She appeared untroubled by the fact that ROYAL COACH LINES did not deliver Andrew to his program; in fact, she did not appear to think that failing to deliver a child to his program reflected poorly upon ROYAL COACH LINES in any way at all. ROYAL COACH LINES employees complied with the applicable rules and regulations, and they are entitled to collect their fee.
American taxpayers fund so much for kids, for seniors, for those with disabilities and hard luck: we deserve better than this. We deserve services that actually do the job we hire them to do.
Next summer, I think the district should find a different bus company. Surely we can do better than ROYAL COACH LINES.
Catherine
Hi everyone -
Our son Andrew is autistic. He is entitled by law to a summer program.
He is also entitled by law to bus transportation to the program.
However, as I write, it is 9:16 and Andrew is not at his program.
The reason?
According to the woman at ROYAL COACH LINES: “The driver sat in your driveway for 10 minutes and no one came out. So he called the dispatcher, and the dispatcher told him to leave.”
Note: the driver did not honk.
The reason the driver did not honk: it is illegal. We had no idea. We’ve been sending developmentally disabled kids to school on the bus for decades and the drivers have always honked. In fact, they’ve honked too much. This summer’s driver, whose arrival times have been unpredictable, honks.
BUT honking is illegal, and today’s driver –a sub – did not honk.
Nor did the driver simply step outside his bus and knock on our door. (Is that illegal?)
And the dispatcher did not call us once he’d heard from the driver.
In short, no one associated with ROYAL COACH LINES took initiative; no one went beyond the call of duty. No one took responsibility for actually doing the job we hire ROYAL COACH LINES to do.
And no one expressed the slightest regret that the job was not done. I spoke at some length with the lady who answered the phone at ROYAL COACH LINES. She appeared untroubled by the fact that ROYAL COACH LINES did not deliver Andrew to his program; in fact, she did not appear to think that failing to deliver a child to his program reflected poorly upon ROYAL COACH LINES in any way at all. ROYAL COACH LINES employees complied with the applicable rules and regulations, and they are entitled to collect their fee.
American taxpayers fund so much for kids, for seniors, for those with disabilities and hard luck: we deserve better than this. We deserve services that actually do the job we hire them to do.
Next summer, I think the district should find a different bus company. Surely we can do better than ROYAL COACH LINES.
Catherine
Monday, August 9, 2010
gone fishing
I'm off to Illinois for the next week - probably won't take my laptop.
See you in a week!
See you in a week!
Street-Fighting Mathematics
Freakonomics interview with Sanjay Mahajan:
Calories with a capital C
The entire manuscript is available for download at MIT Press, & here's the Amazon link:
Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving
Q.I work on the 7th floor. How many additional calories will I expend if, for the next four years, I take the stairs instead of the elevator? – Jordan
A.Time to estimate! The energy required to raise an object—pretend it is me—to a height is the object’s mass times the earth’s gravitational strength (“g”) times the height.
[snip]
Because the human “engine” is only about 25% efficient (internal-combustion engines are also about 25% efficient), the total energy required is a factor of 4 greater: 48,000 Joules. Each Calorie (with a capital C) is about 4,000 Joules, so the energy required to walk up the stairs is 12 Calories. I could use this value to answer the question, but it would give me just a very large number of Calories, and I would not immediately know whether that number is large or small.
To make this energy more meaningful, I compare it against another relevant energy. A useful estimation fact: a moderate-sized jelly doughnut provides 1 million Joules or about 250 Calories. That would be enough to climb the stairs 20 times. Thus, one jelly doughnut provides enough energy to climb the stairs (every weekday) for a month. Equivalently, climbing the stairs for a month will burn off the Calories from one jelly donut.
Calories with a capital C
The distinction between calories (1 calorie is roughly 4 Joules) and Calories (1 Calorie is roughly 4,000 Joules) is sometimes ignored.
The entire manuscript is available for download at MIT Press, & here's the Amazon link:
Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving
Saturday, August 7, 2010
ring o' index cards
here
I'm spending an inordinate amount of time wielding my Staples premium hole punch these days.
The myndology cards are calling to me.
I'm spending an inordinate amount of time wielding my Staples premium hole punch these days.
The myndology cards are calling to me.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Merryl Tisch & religious education
In the wake of contemplating whether American citizens will ever be allowed to use vouchers to pay for religious schools, I came across this opening passage from a NY Times profile of Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch:
Tisch began her career teaching first grade in Jewish schools.
Speaking to a group of Catholic educators in a conference room high above First Avenue, Merryl H. Tisch interrupted a dry barrage of bureaucratic references to attendance mandates and Title 2A with a seeming non sequitur.
“When my refrigerator is broken, I don’t call the service department,” said Dr. Tisch, the newly elected chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents and, by marriage, part of one of New York’s wealthiest families. “I call the head of G.E.”
Dr. Tisch, who tends to lower her voice just as she is making an important point, urged her audience to enlist the soon-to-be head of the Archdiocese of New York, Timothy M. Dolan, to make the case in Albany for religious education. She said that she happened to watch the announcement of Mr. Dolan’s appointment, which was televised live from the Vatican at 3 a.m., and was impressed by his style. “Lay it on the line,” she advised.
Advancing Education, Through Work Ethic and Connections
By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: April 4, 2009
Tisch began her career teaching first grade in Jewish schools.
decision trees from lsquared
from Lsquared:
This looks fantastic - thank you!
fyi: I mentioned Instapaper the other day. I've just stored the probability link in instapaper, where I'll be able to find it faster than I would find it here.
At least, I'll be able to find it faster at Instapaper until I max out Instapaper the same way I max out every other folder system I dream up.
If you're still thinking about this problem, you might find this page useful. It's not an explanation, per se, but there's lots of examples if you just follow the links, and it's intended for students who are almost certainly less mathematically sophisticated than you are.
This looks fantastic - thank you!
fyi: I mentioned Instapaper the other day. I've just stored the probability link in instapaper, where I'll be able to find it faster than I would find it here.
At least, I'll be able to find it faster at Instapaper until I max out Instapaper the same way I max out every other folder system I dream up.
lgm's typing program
re: touch-typing,* lgm writes:
C is making up his own typing program (or will be until I print the AVKO exercises out for him), and we're using an online typing test to check speed.
C's current speed: 10 wpm
[pause]
OK, I just attempted to take the test and was, predictably, interrupted by household stuff just before the end. Still managed to score 100 wpm with 3 mistakes.
* Can't bring myself to speak of keyboarding.
I used AVKO (pdf file) for my children.
Its advantage was that the children did not feel pressured since no computer was waiting for a response or asking for a speedy response. Also the progression made sense.
After that, they did speed drills with some free online program.
C is making up his own typing program (or will be until I print the AVKO exercises out for him), and we're using an online typing test to check speed.
C's current speed: 10 wpm
[pause]
OK, I just attempted to take the test and was, predictably, interrupted by household stuff just before the end. Still managed to score 100 wpm with 3 mistakes.
* Can't bring myself to speak of keyboarding.
Yerkes Dodson strikes again
THE Boston Red Sox haven’t given their fans much to cheer about this summer so we’ve had to take our pleasure where we could find it, for example, by watching Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees struggle to hit his 600th career home run — again and again and again.
Rodriguez hit his 599th home run on July 22, bringing himself and his fans to the brink of celebration. And then, for 12 long days, he not only failed to drive the ball out of the park and into the history books, he also went hitless for 17 consecutive at-bats. This wasn’t the first time Rodriguez has stood at the precipice, and then stood there some more: after hitting his 499th home run in 2007, he came to the plate an excruciating 28 times before finally hitting his 500th.
What made all this so frustrating for New Yorkers (and so delicious for Bostonians) was that everyone felt certain that Rodriguez would have slammed several homers in the past two weeks if only they hadn’t mattered so much. Watching him struggle to break the numerical barrier was like watching a man frozen with fear on the last step of a tall ladder: we knew, and he knew, that the last step was exactly the same as all the steps before it — so why couldn’t he just take it?
One of the ironies of human psychology is that desperately wanting something can make attaining that thing all the more difficult. When stakes go up, performance often goes down. In one study, subjects practiced sinking a putt and got better as they went along — better, that is, until the experimenter offered them a cash reward for their next shot, at which point their performance took a nosedive.
This is because we pay close attention to what we’re doing when what we’re doing matters, and though close attention is helpful when our task is novel or complex, it is positively destructive when our task is simple and well practiced. Golfers in another study were told either to take their time and think about their stroke or to step up and swing as quickly as possible. Although novice golfers did better when they took their time, expert golfers did worse.
The lesson from the laboratory is clear: thinking about tasks that don’t require thought isn’t just pointless, it’s debilitating. It may be wise to watch our fingers when we’re doing surgery or shaving the family dog, but not when we’re driving or typing, because once our brains learn to do something automatically they don’t appreciate interference. The moment we start thinking about when to step on the clutch or hit the alt key, our once-seamless performance becomes slow, clumsy or impossible.
The Weight at the Plate
by Daniel Gilbert
Published: August 4, 2010
Yerkes Dodson at Wikipedia
THE RELATION OF STRENGTH OF STIMULUS TO RAPIDITY OF HABIT-FORMATION
Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson (1908)
First published in Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459-482.
help desk - probability
I'm having trouble with some problems in Mary Dolciani's Algebra and Trigonometry: Structure and Method Book 2
.
p 749
11. A bag contains 2 red, 4 yellow, and 6 blue marbles. Two marbles are drawn at random. Find the probability of each event.
a. Both are red.
b. Both are yellow.
c. Both are blue
d. One is red and one is yellow.
e. Neither is red.
f. Neither is blue.
For a, b, and c, I can solve this problem using two methods and arrive at the same answer:
a. Both are red.
2/12 x 1/11 = 1/66
OR, using the combination formula, nCr:
sample space (number of ways any 2 marbles can be picked out of 12):
12C2 = 12! ÷ 2!(12-2)!
= 12 x 11 ÷ 2
= 66
ways to pick 2 red out of 2 red:
2C2 = 1
probability of picking 2 red:
1 ÷ 66 or 1/66
Trouble is: when I use both approaches to solve d, I get 2 different answers, and I don't understand why.
d. One is red and one is yellow.
2/12 x 4/11 = 1/6 x 4/11 = 4/66 = 2/33
OR, using combination formula nCr:
12C2 = 66 (number of ways any 2 marbles can be drawn from 12)
2C1 = 2 (number of ways 1 red marble can be drawn from 2 red marbles)
4C1 = 4 (number of ways 1 blue marble can be drawn from 4 blue marbles)
so:
2 x 4 ÷ 66 = 4/33 (probability of drawing 1 red & 1 yellow)
2/33 ≠ 4/33
What am I missing here?
Thank you!
.p 749
11. A bag contains 2 red, 4 yellow, and 6 blue marbles. Two marbles are drawn at random. Find the probability of each event.
a. Both are red.
b. Both are yellow.
c. Both are blue
d. One is red and one is yellow.
e. Neither is red.
f. Neither is blue.
For a, b, and c, I can solve this problem using two methods and arrive at the same answer:
a. Both are red.
2/12 x 1/11 = 1/66
OR, using the combination formula, nCr:
sample space (number of ways any 2 marbles can be picked out of 12):
12C2 = 12! ÷ 2!(12-2)!
= 12 x 11 ÷ 2
= 66
ways to pick 2 red out of 2 red:
2C2 = 1
probability of picking 2 red:
1 ÷ 66 or 1/66
Trouble is: when I use both approaches to solve d, I get 2 different answers, and I don't understand why.
d. One is red and one is yellow.
2/12 x 4/11 = 1/6 x 4/11 = 4/66 = 2/33
OR, using combination formula nCr:
12C2 = 66 (number of ways any 2 marbles can be drawn from 12)
2C1 = 2 (number of ways 1 red marble can be drawn from 2 red marbles)
4C1 = 4 (number of ways 1 blue marble can be drawn from 4 blue marbles)
so:
2 x 4 ÷ 66 = 4/33 (probability of drawing 1 red & 1 yellow)
2/33 ≠ 4/33
What am I missing here?
Thank you!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Robert Munsch
A member of the Precision Teaching list just sent me to Robert Munsch's web site and I'm passing the tip along.
About Robert
About Robert
touch-type
Finally going to happen this summer.
I hope.
color chart here
keyboarding practice
source: History of Woodring College of Education
I hope.
color chart here
keyboarding practice
source: History of Woodring College of Education
outsourcing legal work
My friend R. has been telling me about this:
NOIDA, India — As an assistant attorney general for New York State, Christopher Wheeler used to spend most of his time arguing in courtrooms in New York City.
Today, he works in a sprawling, unfinished planned suburb of New Delhi, where office buildings are sprouting from empty lots and dirt roads are fringed with fresh juice stalls and construction rubble. At Pangea3, a legal outsourcing firm, Mr. Wheeler manages a team of 110 Indian lawyers who do the grunt work traditionally assigned to young lawyers in the United States — at a fraction of the cost.
India’s legal outsourcing industry has grown in recent years from an experimental endeavor to a small but mainstream part of the global business of law. Cash-conscious Wall Street banks, mining giants, insurance firms and industrial conglomerates are hiring lawyers in India for document review, due diligence, contract management and more.
Now, to win new clients and take on more sophisticated work, legal outsourcing firms in India are actively recruiting experienced lawyers from the West. And American and British lawyers — who might once have turned up their noses at the idea of moving to India, or harbored an outright hostility to outsourcing legal work in principle — are re-evaluating the sector.
Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers
By HEATHER TIMMONS
Published: August 4, 2010
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