Mallard Fillmore lays it on the line

The cartoonist who does Mallard Fillmore either attended ed school at one point, or knows people who are in education:

reading on iPhones and Kindles

Speaking of dyslexia and visual deficits, I never got around to posting this link:

My iPhone has revolusionised my reading

A friend of mine tells me that her child, who has dyslexia, reads much more easily on the Kindle.

dyslexia is visual not phonological - ?

A few years ago, when I asked Daniel Willingham what journal I should read on the subject of cognitive science, he recommended Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Yesterday, as I was trawling the journal for articles on habit learning, I came across an article from January 2010:  Dyslexia: a deficit in visuo-spatial attention, not in phonological processing by Trichur R. Vidyasagar and Kristen Pammer.

Developmental dyslexia, a specific difficulty in reading despite adequate learning opportunities, affects from 5 to 10 per cent of the population [1], but there are many manifestations of reading failure (Box 1). The etiology of dyslexia itself has been hotly debated for a long time. Theories have ranged from the reading disorder being a high-level learning disability, to a visual perceptual defect. Although it is generally recognized that a majority of poor readers have severe problems in phonological awareness [2,3], it is still an open issue whether the causal deficit in dyslexia is necessarily phonological. The debate is particularly timely in light of recent reevaluations – especially in the USA, Australia and UK – of how children learn to read.

In this paper, we present evidence for an alternative possibility, namely that a fundamental defect in the visual pathways, with or without a corresponding defect in the auditory system, can potentially cause a cascade of effects that can ultimately manifest as a reading problem, including phonological impairments. Understanding the mechanisms underlying dyslexia allows better informed policy making with regard to teaching and remedial intervention.

[snip]

Pre-reading phonological skills predict later reading failure, and phonological interventions have been demonstrated to be successful [2]. However, there are a number of reasons why poor phonological coding might not be the whole story, or even be an etiological factor in dyslexia. Some cases of dyslexia are clearly not phonological, for example where the reading errors are for irregular words, not non-words, and impairments in reading non-words are not always matched by deficits in phonological awareness [4,5]. There are reports of children [5,6] and adults with brain damage [7,8], who have difficulties in non-word reading but nevertheless exhibit good phonological awareness. Such evidence should, at the very least, lead us to question the causal link between a phonological deficit and dyslexia.

[snip]

Misordering of letters and reversal of letters in a word are common complaints from dyslexic readers, and sensitivity to spatial sequencing of the constituent components of text-like object arrays predicts reading in adults [12] and children [13]. Such difficulties in ascertaining the sequence of letters in words cannot be easily explained by phonological deficits. Studies of neurophysiological bases of pattern and object recognition indicate that such sequencing of letters is a non-trivial problem for the brain.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.2

reading on iPhones and Kindles

is Saxon Math different?

Jean wrote:

It's my understanding that the new look also reflects a new owner and a different approach--not so "Saxon-y." Some folks are quite annoyed about this. I'm not sure what I'll do--my daughter is in 76 and I'm a fan, and I'm wondering if I'm going to like the new editions as much.

Art Reed wrote:

I have never seen a "Math Cat" before although several of my senior high school calculus students thought they were "Cats."

If you would take a look at the January 2010 news article at Using Saxon Math I believe your question about which editions of John Saxon's books are still valid - and will be for several decades - will be answered.

If you still have questions you can reach me at my office at (580) 234-0064 (CST) during normal office hours.

true or false

(warning: four-letter words)


In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?

thanks to Susan S!

Cliff's Notes to the rescue

This image, from the Cliff's Notes page on Regular Pyramids, showed me how to solve the Blue Book problem I was stuck on.

The problem:

The pyramid show above [not drawn to scale] has altitude h and a square base of side m. The four edges that meet at V, the vertex of the pyramid, each have length e. If e = m, what is the value of h in terms of m ?

(A) m ÷ square root of 2
(B) m x square root of 3 ÷ 2
(C) m
(D) 2m ÷ square root of 3
(E) m x square root of 2

answer: A

source The Official SAT Study Guide, 2nd edition, p. 401

help desk - Blue Book

I can't do problem number 20 on page 401 in the Blue Book. At least not so far.

If you have the book, can you post the solution in the comments threat? I need the solution, not the answer: I have the answer. Have not yet tried to reverse engineer from the answer to the solution. That's next.

I'll scan the problem and post later on.

Thanks!

update - 10:33

solution here

new look

Googling Saxon Math a couple of posts back, I learned that the Saxon books have "a different look."

source: 
Barb's People Builders

They sure do.

My books look like these.

source:
Buy used Saxon Math

I need a cat.

VR on using backgammon to teach probability

VR wrote:

I have been playing chess with my son for a few years. Chess is deterministic. In order to introduce him to probability concepts, I have started to play backgammon with him and bought him the "Backgammon for Dummies" book, which uses probability concepts to explain what is good play. Other games, such as blackjack and poker, can be used to teach probability. Many good games players can calculate probabilities well, even if they never read a book using the mathematical terminology Allison mentioned. Maybe books on those games can be used to teach probability in a palatable way.

Great minds think alike!

At some point, looking for self-teaching resources on probability, it came to me that I ought to stop trawling Amazon for introductory books on probability and start looking for introductory books on  card-playing.

Or card counting - ?

fyi: A lot of the Dummies books are terrific, I think. The book on public relations is very good, and I've just bought Grammar for Dummies because Stanley Fish said he likes it.

A few years back, I had a scheme to purchase all of the Dummies books and dedicate an entire bookshelf to them, the way people used to buy World Book Encyclopedias and give them pride of place.

Allison on why there is relatively little help available for people self-teaching probability

I believe there are several reasons why there is so little help for discrete probability at this [beginning] level:

1. It requires significant mathematical maturity to even begin to understand what's going on.

2. Almost no one understands probability anyway.

3. Even if you do understand, it is extremely difficult to be careful and precise enough to never make a mistake in describing the problems or wording the solutions.

4. Most of work in discrete probability rewards cleverness. Few methods for tutoring individuals, or supporting individuals in their own learning can teach cleverness.

I'll elaborate on these in another comment.

But this is where you should start: Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Probability (2nd edition)

as smart as a 5th grader

source:
Competition Math: for Middle School (Volume 1)
p. 48

More evidence that "repeating the same lesson over and over" works as well as Howard Gardner's Chinese teachers said it does. I knew how to solve this problem within a few seconds of looking at it, and the reason I knew how to solve this problem within a few seconds of looking at it is that I used the difference of two squares to rationalize denominators many, many times while working my way through Saxon Math.

ego depletion

source:
The Unbearable Automaticity of Being
John A. Bargh, Tanya L. Chartrand
American Psychologist
1999 Volume 54, Issue 7 (Jul)
Pages 462-479 

Apparently eating radishes instead of available chocolates is a bad idea for any number of reasons.

what do parents think?

This is interesting:

Overwhelming numbers of the public link job opportunities and economic success to education preparation, but almost one-half of parents believe today's graduates are less prepared for work or college than they were.
2010 survey - PDK (pdf file)

Wow.

I would have predicted that the general public feels this way but not necessarily parents specifically.

I wonder if a majority of parents say students in their local schools are better prepared than students coming out of other schools --- ?

PDK poll

Quick post before I get back to work.

A few weeks ago we were talking about whether there is opposition to charter schools in suburban districts. Given the comments people left, I believe there is.

So it was interesting today to see that the new pdk poll includes this bullet point in the press release (pdf file):

We like public charter schools more every year! We’d be happy to have new public charter schools in our communities and more throughout the United States. 

Phi Delta Kappan was once described to me as the flagship of the constructivist movement; it's got to be one of the most important journals in public education. If pdk is phrasing a 'pro' finding on charter schools this way, I take that as a sign.

Math in Ukraine - some impressions from my trip

I spent July in Ukraine, visiting my family and friends. My son (now almost 9) finally realized that mom and dad are not the only relatives he has. Anyway, from our observations of life of kids (school age) and interactions with people, a few things really stand out. And math is one of them.

First, for my son, the trip was educational in many respects. Learning to multiply two- and three-digit numbers in his head seemed easy for him. My husband's grandmother, 73 years old, a teacher for 50 (!) years and still going - taught my son the method of mental multiplication in less than an hour. And mind you, she teaches high school language and literature (both Russian and Ukrainian). My son loved it!

Second, one really needs to calculate fast there...(I forgot that in all these years in the states). Food is bought primarily at the farmer's markets. And any "sales person" (most often, a farmer's wife or a kid), will calculate the price for "2kg and 400g of tomatoes" in their heads. And you'd better be as fast as they are, or you may be cheated. I felt pretty safe sending my son to do shopping - at least I was sure he can calculate the right change.

Third, my son played with some random kids - in the streets, on the beach, -some were younger, some were older. But even the younger kids act and look more mature then my son. All of them could do multiplication, division, addition, subtraction fast and efficient in their heads. And most of the kids are really physically fit. They run, climb, walk. My son could not compete with them (and comparing to his classmates here, he is pretty skinny and well trained!)

Fourth, Ukraine changed the years of schooling to 11 (they tried 12 for at least 5 years); kids still can officially finish their schooling after 9th grade. Those who do not want to continue being in school, can go to vocational/technical schools or start working as they are.

Fifth, the official workload of a teacher (full-time position) counting the time in-from of the students is... 18 hours a week! The rest of the time is for planning, meetings, collaboration. The workday ends "as soon as everything is done". Kids are in school usually until 1 or 2 pm. No more than 7 periods a day (and that's more than I had when I was in school - never more than 6!) .

Schedule is different for every day of the week; the courses are still taught in vertical strands - physics begins in grade 6 and continues until grade 11, twice a week etc. Algebra begins in grade 6, along with geometry ( but taught as separate subjects) . I think they added more of calculus to 11th grade, but kept the earlier grades with the same sequence/pace as I had.

By any means, I was glad to learn that elementary/middle grades education is still solid in Ukraine. Because later -well, it too late!

(By the way, Ukraine does standardized testing - in 11th grade, math and language/literature. The results are submitted to colleges/universities. The results count for kids, but not for teachers. As my husband's grandmother put it, in the last grades, it is too late to teach things that were supposed to be learned earlier. But for the promising kids, the kids who showed that they want to continue their educations - the teachers ensure that the test are passed well (if you know what I mean).

As we returned to the US, unfortunately (or fortunately), I keep seeing and comparing. My son wanted to take karate classes. But I do not see the instruction/learning. I see "Mommy's treasure" - Good job! Did you have fun, my dear? And I look at that "dear" and at my son and I see them doing a lousy kiba-dachi and fooling around. And I really wish that instructor would yell or better hit my son (well, it's karate, you do things for a reason!) so he learns fast and effective - humility, obedience, and the right position. Well, we'll get home and my son will owe me 40 push-ups.

Art of Problem Solving

I've been only dimly aware of the Art of Problem Solving web site for lo these many years, so I'm glad kcab steered me over to them web site today.

Here's an article on AoPS from 2007 (pdf file).

Week 7

Debbie Stier

How can it be Week 7 already?

I really need that Big Calendar.


Debbie Stier's big calendar
the big picture
blank calendar template (pdf file) 
self-charting increases motivation 
what is one year?  

arithmetic is habit-forming

Debbie Stier is having the same experience I did when I first started reteaching myself math.

instructional practice

I was looking for an old ktm post about Kumon this morning, and when I found it I rediscovered the concept of instructional practice, meaning practice that teaches.

I think that's probably what the Arlington Algebra Project's sections on probability provides.

question

Are there resources you like for teaching oneself beginning probability?

Someone (either lgm or lsquared, I think) recommended the Arlington Algebra Project, which looks like it's probably terrific for my purposes - though it lacks an answer key, which is not good.

I'll also be using this site (thank you!)

Anything else?

I wonder if I should take the AP statistics course at ALEKS.


update

kcab recommends The Art of Problem Solving, which turns out to have a course that sounds like exactly what I need: Introduction to Counting and Probability

Thank you!

spaced repetition

Because I remained in the third form [grade] three times as long as anyone else, I had three times as much of sentence analysis, learned it thoroughly, and thus got into my bones the structure of the English sentence. The essential structure of the ordinary English sentence is a noble thing.

Winston Churchill
quoted in Sentence Composing for College

spaced repetition
spaced repetition and the chorus effect

in today's mail

from the 25th Anniversary edition of the Harvard Education Letter:

[Jerome Bruner’s “Man: A Course of Study”] was my first deep exposure to progressive education, and I liked what I read, heard, and observed: the hands-on experiences, the deep exploration of inviting topics, the belief that the questions asked are as important as their answers, and that the reasoning behind questions and answers is crucial. I became a card-carrying enthusiast of progressive education, American style.

[snip]

As one personally committed to progressive education, I was well prepared for my initial visits in the early 1980s to the small northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia, home of what are widely regarded to be the finest preschools on the planet. Initially launched in the post-World War II era, these municipal school operate on the assumption that children’s natural curiosity should be the centerpiece of education. An object (or experience) that captures the children’s attention—a shoe, a fax machine, a rainbox, a birdhouse, or a carved lion at the central Piazza—can become the focus of curriculum for weeks, even months. As the young students explore this fertile object, they have the opportunity to draw on the “hundred languages” that are the birthright of every child—their senses, available media and symbol systems, the arts, the sciences, the natural world—to gain relevant insights into the various spheres of life in which these objects occupy a role. What is learned and created each day becomes the starting point for the following days’ activities. And these learnings are publicly displayed – or “documented”—so that teachers, parents, and other children can share in them and build on them.

Alon with other educators, including my mentor Jerome Bruner, I have visited, studied, and learned from the Reggio Emilia approach for 30 years. This flagship educational enterprise has changed my mind about what is possible to achieve with young children, the importance of group—as opposed to individual—learning, and the role that can be played by documentation of learning over days, weeks, and even longer stretches of time. I have also learned how a single educational experiment—conceived 50 years ago by a determined grouop of citizens—can affect practices all over the world.

Yet shortly after visiting Reggio Emilia for the first time, I undertook a series of trips to China. There I found that my progressive educational philosophy—Italian as well as American style-was sharply challenged. In classrooms in major cities around the country, I saw the same “prefabricated” lessons presented in essentially the same manner. Little latitude was permitted to either teacher or student. Indeed, in one college class in psychology, I was shocked to observe obviously talented students simply repeating the same lesson over and over. When I challenged the teacher about what seemed to be an obvious waste of time, we had an unproductive conversation that she finally terminated with the terse remark, “We’ve been doing it this way for so long that we know it is right.”

Yet I was also surprised by some of the positive results. In a first-grade art class, I watched the students slavishly copy a model over and over. I wondered whether these six-year olds could use their developing skills to portray an unfamiliar object—in this case, an Italian stroller that they could not possibly have seen before. Although the teachers protested when I proposed this assignment, I stuck to my guns. To everyone’s astonishment, the students were able to draw the stroller with considerable skill—far greater aptitude than would have been shown by most American youngsters. This experience convinced me that an effective education can begin with a singular focus on skill building rather than on the play of unfettered imagination, and that the skills that are developed, often precociously, have the potential to be mobilized to more creative ends.

From Progressive Education to Educational Pluralism
by Howard Gardner
Harvard Education Letter
September | October 2010

SAT question

Of 5 employees, three are to be assigned an office and 2 are to be assigned a cubicle. If 3 of the employees are men and 2 are women, and if those assigned an office are to be chosen at random, what is the probability that the offices will be assigned to 2 of the men and 1 of the women?

Answer Choices:

(A) 1 / 3
(B) 2 / 5
(C) 1 / 2
(D) 3 / 5
(E) 2 / 3

learned industriousness

Given the fundamental nature of procrastination, it is curious how such a mechanism could have become prevalent. One would expect that such a disadvantageous characteristic would have long been culled from our gene pool. To address this, George Ainslie argues that people in a hunter/gatherer environment should find that their motivational compulsions fit motivational demands almost perfectly: "As long as they sleep and hoard and mate when the relevant urge arises, they will behave more or less adaptively in the environment in which those urges evolved" (1992, p. 88). Unfortunately, in our civilized circumstances, contingencies are quite different, and it often becomes important to act not as nature intended.

There are some who have likely inherited characteristics that let them deal better with procrastination without any type of self-regulatory assistance. Like the naturally athletic, they don't need a lot of help to stay motivationally fit. Fortunately, there is help for the rest of us. There are many, many ways to reduce procrastination if not effectively eliminate it. Here we review three: Learned Industriousness, Energy Regulation, and Goal Setting. Of note, most procrastinators have a wide streak of impulsiveness in them and likely are looking for the "quick fix." Unfortunately, the more powerful the remedy for procrastination, the longer it takes to work.

Piers Steel at Procrastination Central

I am taking his advice re: learned industriousness to heart.

redkudu on Teach Like a Champion - instant success

School starts Monday, and I'm re-reading it for the umpteenth time this weekend. I got it near the end of last year, started using a few techniques, and saw instant success. I also saw a few techniques that I already use, so that was a nice validation.

One of the most profound lessons I learned from it had to do with re-thinking how I lesson plan. Somewhere in the book the author talks about how teachers need to specify what the students will do at each stage of a lesson. This seems obvious; however a lot of lesson planning training talks about what will be taught, how it will be taught, and what the teacher will do to teach it.

Just changing my thinking after reading that bit changed my lesson planning immensely and also changed how I think about what I will be doing in the classroom. Now my lesson plans include a carefully detailed plan of what I should see the students doing at each stage - creating immediately assessable goals that will guide my next move.

And I'll be honest that just this one thing increased the complexity and difficulty of my planning quite a bit. I struggled to wrap my mind around it for a while in some instances. Then, when the light bulb went off, I realized how much it helped me more effectively scaffold my lessons to meet my students' needs - special ed, 504, ESL, etc.

I have pored over every word of that book, and given the fact that I'm about to teach two English classes at a local college, I'm happy for redkudu's reminder that I need to get the book out and pore over it again.

I've also read part of the 'companion' book: Paul Bambrick-Santoyo's Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction. Not sure whether trying to plow through it in the next two weeks makes sense given the fact that I need to master Whimbey and create two courses. Is Bambrick-Santoyo primarily talking about school-wide use of data?

Or will the book help me?

Another item for the to do list.





Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College



Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction



Teaching and Learning Grammar: The Prototype-Construction Approach

MathCounts banning homeschool teams

Looks like some public school parents of gifted math students pulled their kids out of school to pool them together and become MathCounts "super teams," so MathCounts decided to ban all homeschool teams, in a unanimous vote. They'll still be able to compete as individuals.

Dan Dempsey on professional development

here

Peter Meyer's palm card for educational excellence

... I’m not so sure we don’t know what works and doesn’t work in education — or, for that matter,  in education reform. Perhaps I am a rube about this, but when I walk into a school — I took the same tour as Brill and it is as startling as he describes it — I know within a few minutes whether the place is working for the kids or not. (It’s a little like the Supreme Court rule on pornography: you know when you see it.) I will soon be trademarking Pete’s Palm Card for Education Excellence: Order. Consistency. Content.

Proof Positive in Harlem

Here is Peter again on the subject of school quality and P.E. ----

a purchase I am reconsidering

xkcd

thanks to Daniel Ethier
Independent George asks why

faulty watch problem

12. A faulty watch gains 3 minutes per hour. If the watch is set to the correct time at 8:00 a.m., what is the correct time when the faulty watch shows 10:0 p.m. on the same day?

(A) 9:32 p.m.
(B) 9:26 p.m.
(C) 9:24 p.m.
(D) 9:20 p.m.
(E) 9:18 p.m.

Acing the New SAT I Math
p. 30

the big picture

I'm going to try to make a big calendar this weekend. Debbie S. made one for her kitchen and says it's magic. Both of her kids have been studying it and so has she.

I could use some magic where time is concerned, and I've been looking for years. After the Time Timer, I tried PlannerPad, which worked reasonably well until I ordered the "executive size" PlannerPad, which I found awkward to carry about. I've been trying to get back in the habit of using the personal sized PlannerPad for a couple of months now.

Still and all, PlannerPad didn't give me a sense of time beyond the confines of one week.

We'll see.

Debbie Stier's big calendar
the big picture
blank calendar template (pdf file) 
self-charting increases motivation 
what is one year?  

how the unions lost the media, part 2

Union leader calls on L.A. teachers to boycott Times

part 1

Graphing Calculators

My son is required to buy a $100 TI-84+ graphing calculator for his Algebra II class this fall. I'm not thrilled about this; the cost or its use. Does anyone have any comments about these calculators or their use in high school math?

Robin on Teach Like a Champion

I loved this book. It made a difference in my teaching on day 1 when I implemented it. My students are so much more attentive and well behaved AND they learn more. I keep rereading bits of the book for follow-up.

Tell us more!



Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College

college composition

I'm going to be teaching two courses in college composition at a local college this fall.

Any thoughts?

I'm midway through Arthur Whimbey & Myra J. Linden's book.  It's terrifically helpful. Will try to find time to post excerpts.

sorry, Johnny

Sorry, Johnny. You have to stay in the crumbling, failing, dangerous public school in your neighborhood because your freedom of choice is not statistically justified.

commenter David reacts to freaknomics post on futility of school choice

Very droll.

I keep thinking the politics of choice will be affected by the economy. Charter schools (and vouchers) are cheaper than public schools, and parents are happier (or at least spend fewer years of their lives being unhappy - pdf file).

Same academic outcomes for less money, with less stress on the family: put it that way, some of us are going to take that deal.

LA Times Teacher Rankings

Marginal Revolution has a post about the recent LA Times teacher rankings here.

I'm interested to see what the fallout of this will be. Will other towns crunch the same data?

From Alex Tabarraok's commentary from the link:

I don't blame the unions for being up in arms and I feel for the teachers, for some of them this is going to be a shock and an embarrassment. We cannot simultaneously claim, however, that teachers are vitally important for the future of our children and also that their effectiveness should not be measured. As systems like this become more common students will benefit enormously and so will teachers.

They are already finding a few "Beloved Teacher Mrs. X"s who are ending up in the bottom 10%. But, we're told, that's okay, because they teach valuable "critical thinking" skills that are not measured on the tests.

LA Times/RAND Corp analysis explanation

For those interested in the technical details of the value-added analysis mentioned in the prior post, here you go.

LA Times: Excellent and terrible teaching found in the data

The LA Times is beginning another series of articles about LAUSD, this series based on access they've had to LAUSD's longitudinal test data. Prior articles focused on money, with the Times creating an easily readable database listing all LAUSD employees' salaries. This time, they are focused on teaching.

The first article's intro says "A Times analysis, using data largely ignored by LAUSD, looks at which educators help students learn, and which hold them back."

To accomplish this,

The Times obtained seven years of math and English test scores from the Los Angeles Unified School District and used the information to estimate the effectiveness of L.A. teachers — something the district could do but has not.

The Times used a statistical approach known as value-added analysis, which rates teachers based on their students' progress on standardized tests from year to year. Each student's performance is compared with his or her own in past years, which largely controls for outside influences often blamed for academic failure: poverty, prior learning and other factors.

The article profiles a couple of strong and weak teachers, and apparently, more articles are forthcoming that will do more profiling. It seems that after analyzing the data, the authors went to the classrooms of those in the top decile and bottom decile for student improvement to view the teachers in action.

Miguel Aguilar at Broadous Elementary School is one of the strongest. "On average, his students started the year in the 34th percentile in math compared with all other district fifth-graders. They finished in the 61st."

That's an impressive improvement. I wish I understood enough details of the underlying scoring to know how this relates in standard deviations. Is improving a student one standard deviation when they one below the mean as difficult as improving a student one standard deviation when they are at the mean? Certainly it's not the same effort to move a students from 1 standard dev away from the mean to 2. What assumptions can be made about equal difficulty in movement of scores measured in percentile?

The article repeats what we all know as well: you must raise the bar.

"On visits to the classrooms of more than 50 elementary school teachers in Los Angeles, Times reporters found that the most effective instructors differed widely in style and personality. Perhaps not surprisingly, they shared a tendency to be strict, maintain high standards and encourage critical thinking.

But the surest sign of a teacher's effectiveness was the engagement of his or her students — something that often was obvious from the expressions on their faces."

The article goes on to argue that their analysis shows that excellence in teaching and weakness in teaching matter a great deal.

"Among the findings:

• Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at year's end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math."

The LAT is creating a database for release "in the coming months." I can't wait. I wonder if it will shed light on the value of mediocre teaching?

It's great to see this article. With luck, it will propel other journalists to perform similar studies. Perhaps some enterprising ed bloggers can FOI this information for their district, and perform the same analysis.

Alternatives to Lucy Caulkins?

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?

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

gone fishing

I'm off to Illinois for the next week - probably won't take my laptop.

See you in a week!

Peter Meyer at Flypaper

Good News!


inside the other black box

Street-Fighting Mathematics

Freakonomics interview with Sanjay Mahajan:

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

the secret to being lucky

Debbie Stier

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.

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:

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:

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.

out of sequence

Week 2

Week 4

Humbled, but still having fun

Hunter College High School

Diversity Debate

lgm's typing program

re: touch-typing,^* lgm writes:

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.