Discovering the meaning of fractional exponents

Clueless mom leads GK (gifted kid) to discover the meaning of fractional exponents by offering an example which reveals its meaning.

She'd like some pedagogical terminology, please. What device did she use?

Here's her blog entry: Deriving the meaning of fractional exponents.

DIY

in case you were thinking about making your own butter

I personally had not been thinking about making my own butter, but now that I've read the article and skimmed the recipes I am. (Thinking about it, that is.)

Somebody stop me before I strike again.

Speaking of which, I'm still making most of our bread. I have a loaf in the oven right now, as a matter of fact.


update: from Barry

I can always tell when you're working on your book. You always end up making butter or something.

I'm filing that comment in the "Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be writers" category.

Just so you know.

guess and check for a reason

algebra trick

If that link doesn't work, try here.

how to be a genius

"It's complicated explaining how genius or expertise is created and why it's so rare," says Anders Ericsson, the professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee who edited the handbook. "But it isn't magic, and it isn't born. It happens because some critical things line up so that a person of good intelligence can put in the sustained, focused effort it takes to achieve extraordinary mastery. These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort."

[snip]

"It's funny, really. On one hand it's encouraging: it makes me think that even the most ordinary among us should be careful about saying we can't do great things, because people have proven again and again that most people can do something extraordinary if they're willing to put in the exercise. On the other hand, it's a bit overwhelming to look at what these people have to do. They generally invest about five times as much time and effort to become great as an accomplished amateur does to become competent..."

[snip]

Take intelligence. No accepted measure of innate or basic intelligence, whether IQ or other metrics, reliably predicts that a person will develop extraordinary ability. In other words, the IQs of the great would not predict their level of accomplishments, nor would their accomplishments predict their IQs. Studies of chess masters and highly successful artists, scientists and musicians usually find their IQs to be above average, typically in the 115 to 130 range, where some 14 per cent of the population reside - impressive enough, but hardly as rarefied as their achievements and abilities."

[snip]

A sober look at any field shows that the top performers are rarely more gifted than the also-rans, but they almost invariably outwork them.


the ten year rule

This has led scholars of elite performance to speak of a 10-year rule: it seems you have to put in at least a decade of focused work to master something and bring greatness within reach. This shows starkly in a 1985 study of 120 elite athletes, performers, artists, biochemists and mathematicians led by University of Chicago psychologist Benjamin Bloom, a giant of the field who died in 1999. Every single person in the study took at least a decade of hard study or practice to achieve international recognition. Olympic swimmers trained for an average of 15 years before making the team; the best concert pianists took 15 years to earn international recognition. Top researchers, sculptors and mathematicians put in similar amounts of time.

[snip]

The same is true for Tiger Woods. He seems magical on the golf course, but he was swinging a golf club before he could walk, got great instruction and practised constantly from boyhood, and even today outworks all his rivals. His genius has been laboriously constructed.

[snip]

...the subjects of Bloom's study, like most elite performers, almost invariably enjoyed plentiful support in their formative years. Bloom, in fact, came to see great talent as less an individual trait than a creation of environment and encouragement. "We were looking for exceptional kids," he said, "and what we found were exceptional conditions." He was intrigued to find that few of the study's subjects had shown special promise when they first took up the fields they later excelled in, and most harboured no early ambition for stellar achievement.

[snip]

Michael Jordan, widely considered to be one of the world's greatest athletes, struggled horribly when he moved from basketball to baseball, where he was routinely flummoxed by minor league pitchers.

[snip]

Eric Kandel of Columbia University in New York, who won a Nobel prize in 2000 for discovering much of the neural basis of memory and learning, has shown that both the number and strength of the nerve connections associated with a memory or skill increase in proportion to how often and how emphatically the lesson is repeated.

[snip]

Genius must be built.

[snip]

These disciplines all but insist that the traditional distinction between nature and nurture is obsolete. What we call talent or genius illustrates vividly what the past 25 years have taught us about gene expression - that our genetic potentials are activated and realised only through environment and experience.

[snip]

We should probably shelve the notion of genius as an innate, almost irrepressible gift and speak instead of expertise, talent or even greatness - terms that hint at the work underlying supreme accomplishment.

source:
How to Be a Genius

I wonder if spending hours and hours and hours of your life trying to figure out the connection between stereotypy and novelty so you can FINALLY finish a draft of CHAPTER ONE counts towards the 10-year rule.

Or do you have to stop the clock every time you get stuck?

...................

Don't answer that.

..................

I like the idea of replacing genius with greatness.


do what you love (may have to hit refresh a couple of times)
expertise and deliberate practice
freakonomics post on Ericsson
Cambridge Handbook of Expert Performance (terrific)

Different Drummers: classroom discipline

more from the Different Drummers report:

Education professors have a clear response for how to deal with disorder and lack of discipline, which head the lists of teacher and parent concerns. It is often when teachers fail to encourage active learning, the professors say, that they face order and discipline problems in their classrooms.

About 6 in 10 education professors (61%) believe that when a public school teacher faces a disruptive class, he or she has probably failed to make lessons engaging enough to capture the students' attention. "Effective motivation that turns kids on to learning is a positive way of dealing with discipline," said a Los Angeles professor, "and I think you need to do that instead of just controlling them." A Chicago professor said much the same thing: "We teach students how to become active learners, and I think that relates to the discipline problem... When you have students engaged and not vessels to receive information, you tend to have fewer discipline problems."

Underlying these attitudes seems to be a sense that children have an innate love of learning^* that can be used to harness any wayward or mischievous impulses. The belief that tapping into this innate love of learning will capture the devoted attention of students is powerful among education professors, so much so that many seem to question the need for academic sanctions. In fact, most professors of education (59%) believe that academic sanctions such as the threat of failing a course or being held back a grade are not an important part of motivating kids to learn. The age-old incentive kids have always had for studying and working hard in school - the fear of getting a bad grade - is unnecessary and inappropriate.

This reminds me of the time I went to the NYU bookstore and surveyed the ed school books (scroll down). It was all constructivism all the time, except for the one book on Techniques for Managing Verbally and Physically Aggressive Students, which explained things like what to do when a student is attempting to strangle you from behind.

I guess they had that one in there in case any of their graduates had to work in a school without fuzzy math.


^* Innate love of learning, ok...possibly. Innate love of learning negative exponents: I don't think so.


Different Drummers
the struggle
gifted children and ed schools
portrait of a heterogeneous classroom
constructivism and classroom discipline

Everyday Math in PS 188

from Niki Hayes:

Two years ago PS 188 in Queens was the highest performing school in the District and City and one of the highest performing schools in the State on the 4th grade math exam. It well should have been as it is in a very high performing district and has a gifted/magnet program in the school.

Not content to leave well enough alone, the new Principal decided, by herself, to change from a mixed curriculum (traditional supplemented by a bit of TERC) to Everyday Mathematics exclusively. It was introduced first to all the gifted/magnet classes. Parents who saw what the children were now wasting their time on expressed their exasperation to each other; the Principal wasn't listening. The results are now in and the school fell to tied-for 6th in the District, and outscored by too many schools in the City and State to count. This is in spite of the children being drilled to exhaustion with test prep! And the school had its lowest percentage of "4" (above grade level) scores of all the reported years.

Of the 5 schools in the District that outscored PS 188, none has a gifted/magnet program and all use a traditional or mixed curriculum as PS 188 used to. None uses Everyday Mathematics.

Seen as an experiment, this demonstrates that Everyday Mathematics is a clear danger to bright, college bound kids!

Melvin Meer
Parent
Queens Community Board 11 Education committee

Gifted Kid proves negative exponents

With Catherine's encouragement, I've been blogging about my nine-year-old mathematically gifted kid. I call him GK for short. Here's our math lesson from this morning:

GK proves negative exponents.

It is Catherine's theory that how our schools treat our gifted can be a pretty good measure of academic rigor in general.

I would add that we can learn a good deal about mathematical thinking, and all its various forms, from observing the gifted kids. The problem is keeping up with them. That's why my blog is called "Clueless Mom of Gifted Kid."



update from Catherine:

I asked Barry whether this is a proof - it is!

Yes, that would constitute a proof, and even though it proves it for 3 ^(-2) one can see that it extends to all numbers. A more general proof would be that since a^m/a^n = a^(m-n). If n > m, then m-n is negative. Since it's the same as dividing a^m by a^n, one can see that there are m a's in the numerator and n a's in the denominator. Through cancellation one is left with 1/a^(m-n).

There are more rigorous and formal proofs but the above is suitable for an algebra 1 course.

“Low threshold, high ceiling” – Is this a good thing?

In reviewing the website of the new math program just adopted by our school (aargh, more on that later), I came across this:

Think Math! materials are designed to have a “low threshold” and a “high ceiling.” In other words, students can approach any Think Math! activity from where they are at the moment and still succeed, learn, and be challenged.

My first impression was that this was not a good thing. It seemed to indicate this program was not organized in a cumulative, logical format that would require a mastery of the previous lesson in order to succeed in the subsequent lesson. In other words, “just jump in any time, because the program skips around topics.” If a student doesn’t fully learn the material (low threshold), that’s fine. On the other hand, if a student completely masters the lesson (high ceiling), well, all the better. Meanwhile, the gap between the slower learners and the faster learners will continue to widen.

And, for assessment purposes, I would imagine that clearing the “low threshold” constitutes “meeting standards”. This would ensure that no child is left behind.

I also found this description.

Problems that can be adapted for multiple ability levels provide a way to engage every student in a class. These problems are sometimes referred to as "low threshold, high ceiling" problems because all students can understand the problem and solve some part of it (low threshold), but even the highest-ability students in the class will not easily complete it (high ceiling). Rich problems can also be extended to allow students to explore more mathematics.

It seems all about heterogeneous grouping, engaging the students at all costs and low expectations. What’s the good part about this that I’m missing?

I'm angry...

Yesterday I picked up my son's report card. He was rated "above standard" in math and science (of course! Kindergarten, and we completed the 1st grade in math already at home! Russian math, not a fuzzy one). OK, but he was placed in class 105 for the next year.

Let me explain a little. I work in middle school - and I hate heterogeneous placement... I tried to ensure that my honor classes are as homogeneous as possible. Honor classes in each grade are numbered 01.

So today I went to my son's school to clarify the issue: do they track? What is 05 class? Can I place him in class with accelerated math (if they have it)?

The answers were (and since they know that I am a teacher "from across the street" they were a little more clear than a moment before on the phone obviously answering a similar question):

-District demands heterogeneous placement - we follow. There are no difference between the classes by number.
-well, we don't know who is the teacher in that class for sure (that's true, nobody knows anything for sure in the schools until September!)
-if he is recommended by his teacher he will be pulled out for enriched math no matter what class he is in

After I left the office, the secretary ran after me:
-She just looked up and found that 105 is an inclusion (CTT) class! So my son was placed there for good balance and this is fair to other students and teachers! (Sure, I know inclusion classes! He will be there to help the teacher teach slower students instead of LEARNING himself. And that "fair" talk drives me nuts - I heard it in my school from the teachers, too. I don't see too much good in heterogeneous placement, sorry. Especially, when it concerns my child. And I don't care if it's fair for other children. Life is a competition after all).

-Well, she understands... but she can't advise anything. If I have any other reservations, I shall feel free...

Now, Add to that Everyday Math curriculum and Balanced Literacy with Social Studies focused on the "Neighborhood" - I will start my search again. The worst - most public schools (all as I was told) use EM in Brooklyn, and I am restricted by many things such as who and how drops him off, picks him up from school etc. Oh... And I planned to relax this summer!

the Washington consensus & teacher quality

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled against race-based student assignment plans (within parameters set by Justice Kennedy, I gather), I wish to heck we could get our policy wonks & columnists to stop writing race-based columns and policy briefs.

The enforced focus on race leads directly to wrong assumptions (white schools: good; black schools: bad) and, I'm convinced, to increased racism (black parents/character/culture: bad; white parents/character/culture: good). That's not the intention, obviously; policy wonks and education columnists are trying to narrow or close the achievement gap, not ratify it.

But all too often the continual association of "badness" with "blackness" and "Hispanicness" does the opposite.

It's not that policy wonks and columnists should be color-blind. What's good about NCLB - one of the things - is that it forces affluent school districts like mine to disaggregate their data, to tell taxpayers & parents how well their disadvantaged kids are doing.

The problem with making race the focus is that you factor out curriculum, pedagogy, teacher training, and even education case law and accountability as essential components of analysis. Once you do that, you limit your ability to understand what's going on inside our schools.

I don't understand what's going on inside our schools, either, but I've come to feel that there's a great deal more - or less - than the Washington consensus suspects or even imagines.


the consensus:

Reformers in the nation’s capital agreed on ....the nature of the education problem....How did the NCLB advocates understand the problem they intended to solve? First and foremost, they were concerned about the nation’s “achievement gap”--primarily the disparity between the performance of white and Asian students on the one hand, and African-American and Latino students on the other. In 2000, the typical African-American 12th grader was reading and performing math at approximately the same level as the average white 8th grader. Leaders of both parties declared this to be unacceptable, a violation of equal opportunity, and a threat to America’s future competitiveness (Thernstrom and Thernstrom, 2003).

I'm convinced that "the nature of the education problem" isn't the achievement gap.

The achievement gap is a scandal; it needs to be narrowed and/or closed and/or reversed, depending upon the child.

But the achievement gap isn't the problem. It's the symptom of the problem, or so I will believe until sound value-added analysis shows me I'm wrong.

The essential reason for the 4-year achievement gap, or one of the essential reasons, is that middle and upper-middle class white children are more "bulletproof" than disadvantaged children for various reasons, no doubt including parents who can "assist with homework," (scroll down for CA Math Frameworks) parents who can hire tutors, parents who build word and world knowledge in their children as a matter of routine, black and Hispanic children fearful of acting white, and Lord knows what all.

In light of all this, my guess is that paying "effective teachers" lots more money to teach in urban schools won't narrow the gap appreciably, though I assume it would help.

This is an example of the "perception gap" between people with kids in the schools and analysts without kids (currently) in the schools. Pundits and policy analysts read the new report on teacher equity from Tennessee (pdf file; eduwonk link) as proof that teacher equity is a major problem and, thus, a major solution, if we could just take all the good teachers away from the white kids and give them to the black kids.

Sometimes you have to wonder: are analysts thinking about the real world at all? If urban parents didn't like busing, just how receptive are urban parents of any race or ethnicity going to be to a top-down scheme to strip their children's schools of the best teachers?

While the TN study does show that low poverty/low minority schools have better teachers than high poverty/high minority schools, I suspect the figures are far less dramatic than members of the general public would expect:

most effective teachers:

High poverty/high minority schools: 17.6% of teaching staff is "most effective"
Low poverty/low minority schools: 21.3% of teaching staff is "most effective"

18% versus 21%

It's possible that a 3-point difference is much larger than it appears "on paper," of course. And the report does say that the "most effective" teachers in high poverty schools aren't as effective as the "most effective" teachers in low poverty schools.

But this passage makes me wonder:

A teacher effect score below zero indicates that the average student in the teacher’s class made less growth than the statewide average, while a teacher effect score above zero indicates that the average student in the teacher’s class made more growth than the statewide average.

[snip]

If a teacher’s effect score was below zero, and one standard error above the score was still negative, the teacher was categorized as “least effective.”

If a teacher’s effect score was positive, and one standard error below the score was still positive, the teacher was categorized as “most effective”.

As usual, I wish I'd been able to take a statistics course by now..... but lacking the requisite background knowledge, my question is: if we're comparing "most effective" teachers in high poverty schools to "most effective" teachers in low poverty schools on the criteria of their students beating the statewide average ---- aren't we potentially saying that the "most effective" teachers in the high poverty schools are actually better than the "most effective" teachers in the low poverty schools?

Wouldn't it be more of an achievement to have your high-poverty students beating the statewide average than to have your low-poverty students beating the statewide average?

Or have I got the logic completely wrong? [see Doug's answer, below]

The figures on "least effective" teachers are also much closer than we non-pundits would assume:

High poverty/high minority schools: 16% of the teaching staff is "least effective"
Low poverty/low minority schools: 23.8% of the teaching staff is "least effective"

I suspect most middle and upper-middle class parents would be horrified to learn that students in classes taught by 16% of the teachers in their schools are ending up performing more than 1 standard deviation below the statewide average.

That 16% figure, btw, jibes with the figure Ed was always cited when he headed the California History Social Science Project. Administrators and teachers universally told him that 15% of teachers were terrible.

Here's another interesting passage:

Although many of the beginning teachers in high poverty/high minority schools are among the state’s most effective, many of them do not stay in these schools or lose their effectiveness over time.

There are more "most effective" beginning teachers in high poverty/high minority schools (roughly 17%) than in low poverty/low minority schools (roughly 12%).

The big disparity happens down the line, in the number of expert teachers (using the novice, professional, expert classification) teaching in high poverty/high minority versus low poverty/low minority schools.

When you look at teachers teaching from 11 to 20 years (and remember: expertise takes 10 years to develop, research on teacher effectiveness notwithstanding) the gap is immense:

High poverty/high minority schools: 16% of teachers teaching 11-20 years in high poverty/high minority schools are "most effective"
Low poverty/low minority schools: 27% of teachers teaching 11-20 years in low poverty/low minority schools are "most effective"

So.....looking at this, and I realize it's dangerous to make comparisons across time.... what I see happening is that high poverty schools start out with 17.6% of their novice teachers being "most effective"; 10 years later that figure stands at 16%.

Low poverty/low minority schools in TN start out with 12% "most effective" novices; 10 years later that figure is up to 27%.



trouble in River City

This is bad news, because the baby boom teachers are retiring and being replaced by novices.

I've been reliably told that 10 years ago my district didn't hire novice teachers; we didn't even interview novice teachers.

Now all of our hires have no more than 5 years teaching experience as far as I've been able to determine. (This may not be the case for SPED teachers.)

People tell me this is happening all over the country. Given the pension situation in many communities, I assume that's the case.

Low poverty/low minority schools are systematically lowering teacher quality through hiring practices.

If the Tennessee figures hold true for other schools, my own school district may be looking at a reduction of a teacher quality from 27% of teachers being "most effective" to as low as 12%.


update from Doug:

"Or have I got the logic completely wrong?"

Not completely. 8-)

First, by the description, the students skills aren't being compared to the average, their progress is being compared to the average. On the face of things, this seems reasonably fair. A good teacher should be able to create more progress in his students than a poor teacher. This seems to be a measure of that.

Second, the dividing line is not teachers whose progressed more than a standard deviation below the average, but students whose progress was more than one standard error below the average. With a large population of teachers, this would seem to be a very small difference.

In fact, this would result in any teacher whose classes learned detectably better than average being rated as "most effective". Talk about your low expectations!

What this says to me is that the difference between the top 20% of teachers and the mean is barely detectable. In other words, this would imply that there is little benefit to most teachers, since more than 60% of teachers are statistically indistinguishable.

Perhaps the top 10% (or 5%, or 1%) is actually capable of making a significant difference in learning, but that can't be determined from what you report.

I find that both surprising and discouraging. All I can hope is that either I made a mistake in analysis or the survey has some problem.

Bong hits for bad op ed writers

I have to do this.

Because of the Tinker case in 1969, much of the cultural disarray of the past 35 years flowed out of schools and into society. Teachers today will tell you their discipline problems start at home.

This passage stands as a logic flopperoo of the first order.

(Well, possibly not the first order. I'm beginning to think that honor goes to David Brooks.)

Number one, let's agree that we've had 35 years of cultural disarray preceded by, apparently, cultural array.

Were teachers exempt from those 35 years of cultural disarray?

Were schools exempt?

Did 35 years of cultural disarray happen exclusively inside family homes and only then move outside the family home to schools and teachers?

And, uh, didn't the Tinker case happen outside the family home, in the schools & the courts?

I have to stop reading op-eds.


what can the federal government do about parents?
Bong hits for bad parents
Bong hits for bad op ed writers

Bong hits for bad parents

Because of the Tinker case in 1969, much of the cultural disarray of the past 35 years flowed out of schools and into society. Teachers today will tell you their discipline problems start at home.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus -- Final Episode
by Daniel Henninger
WSJ
June 28 2007; Page A12

Apparently I have decided that obsessively scouring the media for signs of anti-parent sentiment is a good use of my time.


what can the federal government do about parents?
Bong hits for bad parents
Bong hits for bad op ed writers

What is Reasoned Discovery?

I was reading the Glenn Commission report, published almost seven years ago, and was struck with how things haven’t changed-- at least not for the better anyway. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the state of math and science education has actually have gotten much worse. I rambled on about it a bit here.

As I read the report I came across a reference to “reasoned discovery” and had to pause and attempt to understand what the authors meant by this term. I got this nagging feeling that they didn't mean it in the constructivist definition of "discovery" per se.

This term only appears once in the entire report in this particular passage:

In Japan, by contrast, closely supervised, collaborative work among students is the norm. Teachers begin by presenting students with a mathematics problem employing principles they have not yet learned. They then work alone or in small groups to devise a solution. After a few minutes, students are called on to present their answers; the whole class works through the problems and solutions, uncovering the related mathematical concepts and reasoning. The students learn through reasoned discovery, not lecture alone.

The first thing I did was google “reasoned discovery” assuming I’d find so many articles that I’d have to do some serious sifting. That’s not what happened at all. I found some references to reasoned discovery in some scientific articles and research but I struggled to find a clear definition of it as a type of discovery.

So why the adjective, "reasoned"?

I don’t believe “discovery” in the implementation carried out by most proponents of constructivism is what the Glenn Commission authors were referring to when they articulated “reasoned discovery”. I think that they had a very specific idea in mind and chose their words very carefully. In another passage they referred to “mathematics as the language of scientific reasoning” which suggests that they used the adjective “reasoned” to distinguish it from “discovery” in and of itself.

By dissecting the passage, I tried to come to a better understanding of what these 25 collaborators had in mind.

1. The collaborative work is closely supervised. The teacher plays an active role in the learning.
2. The group presents the answer after only “a few minutes”. There is no prolonged “struggle”.
3. Immediately thereafter, the whole class works through the problems and solutions presumably under the careful direction of a teacher “uncovering the related mathematical concepts and reasoning.”
4. The students “learn through reasoned discovery, not lecture alone” which means that lecture (direct instruction) is a tandem component and is assumed to be part of the teaching/learning process.

After staying up and thinking about this for much too long, I'm still wondering what “reasoned discovery” means.

the trouble with math

One problem with teaching mathematics in the K-12 system - and I see it as a major difficulty - is that there is virtually nothing the pupils learn that has a non-trivial application in today's world. The most a teacher can tell a student who enquires, entirely reasonably, "How is this useful?" is that almost all mathematics finds uses, in many cases important ones, and that what they learn in school leads on to mathematics that definitely is used.

Things change dramatically around the sophomore university level, when almost everything a student learns has significant applications.

I am not arguing that utility is the only or even the primary reason for teaching math. But the question of utility is a valid one that deserves an answer, and there really isn't a good one. For many school pupils, and often their parents, the lack of a good answer is enough to persuade them to give up on math and focus their efforts elsewhere.

mathematician in residence programs for 8-12

Another possibility to try to motivate K-12 students (actually, in my experience from visiting schools and talking with their teachers, it is the older pupils who are the ones more likely to require motivation, say grades 8 or 9 upward) is for professional mathematicians to visit schools. I know I am not the only mathematician who does this. There is nothing like presenting pupils with a living, breathing, professional mathematician who can provide a first-hand example of what mathematicians do in and for society.

I recently spent two weeks in Australia, as the Mathematician in Residence at St. Peters College in Adelaide. This was only the second time in my life that a high school had invited me to spend some time as a visitor, and the first time overseas - over a very large sea in fact! In both cases, the high school in question was private, and had secured private endowment funding to support such an activity. For two weeks, I spent each day in the school, giving classes. Many classes were one-offs, and I spent the time answering that "What do mathematicians do?" question. For some 11 and 12 grade classes, we met several times and I gave presentations and mini-lessons, answered questions, engaged in problem sessions, and generally got to know the students, and they me. You would have to ask the students what they got from my visit, but from my perspective (and that of the former head of mathematics at the school, David Martin, who organized my visit), they gained a lot. To appreciate a human activity such as mathematics, there is, after all, nothing that can match having a real-life practitioner on call for a couple of weeks.

Thought of on its own, such a program seems expensive. But viewed as a component of the entire mathematics education program at a school, the incremental cost of a "mathematician in residence" is small, though in the anti-educational and anti-science wasteland that is George Bush's America it may be a hard sell in the U.S. just now. But definitely worth a try when the educational climate improves, I think. If it fails, the funds can always be diverted elsewhere.

Devlin's Angle
Keith Devlin
MAA Online
June 2007

I would like to see college professors brought into public schools to give talks - and to do residencies.

I've been introducing the idea around here; I know some parents are interested.

reform fatigue

Graphing calculators & computers peeked in college courses in 2000.

I often hear complaints funneled via their high school teachers that students who used graphing calculators while in high school as a means of supporting their understanding of calculus concepts find, when they get to college, that they are not allowed to use them.

Apparently, these complaints are correct.

self-stick easel pads!

Lynn got me going on novel 3-M offerings. (It's Lynn's fault! It is!)


"Turn any room into a meeting room."


oh, wow

I'm sure I need this product.

arrow flags

Post-it 1/2" Assorted Arrow Flags 100/pack

We're buying them in bulk. The small flags (scroll down) are great, too. I've just used the small flags to mark lessons in Saxon Algebra 1/2 I want Christopher to do; I used the arrow flags to mark specific problems in the problem sets.

Today I'm ordering the Page Markers.

Now that I have small flags, arrow flags, and (soon) page markers, I may be able to find the passages I'm looking for in Stereotypic Animal Behaviour, a book in which the word "stereotypies" appears on each and every page, making each and every page seem like the exact same page you looked at moments before. World's worst index, too.

If I can find passages I'm looking for, I may be able to complete Chapter One of Temple's & my sequel to AIT.

That would be good.

Never let it be said there isn't a technological solution to a problem that is ruining your life.

New Zealand compared to US re: PowerPoint

This is fascinating:

from Tracy W (in New Zealand):

In my experience, government departments use Powerpoint because they can then call what they are doing a "presentation" which means they don't have to go through all the procedural rules for documents (eg circulating them two weeks beforehand).

Powerpoint is wonderful if used properly. That means using it as something adjacent to a speech. A set of slides should not be a standalone document - if it is people are going to spend all their time reading the slides and not listening to your speech.

from Barry (who works for the EPA):

There are many documents other than PowerPoint that can ciruclate without going through procedural rules. But in the end, if someone files a Freedom of Information Act request about a particular subject, and wants ALL documentation related to it, PowerPoint presentations must be provided to comply with the request.

from Tracy again:

In NZ slides from presentations may be obtained under the Official Information Act (unless there's an extremely good reason why not). Indeed, officials have been required to write down their recollections of what was said at informal meetings and release that under NZ's Official Information Act.

I should pull the Dummies book. As I recall, he made Tracy's point about PowerPoint, which is that the slides are a distraction from the speaker. His purposes are different, obviously; Public Relations for Dummies explains how to give speeches as a means of drumming up business.

In that case you don't want anything distracting from the speaker.

iirc, he had a cool "If you want more information ask me for this green sheet" technique he recommended everyone use.

Sometime during the speech you tell people that if they want more information they should come up after the speech and ask for "the green sheet" (a green sheet of typing paper with material printed on it)..... at which point you capture their business card & contact info.

Something like that.

aaargh

We were watching the first season of 24 last night, which is great because we can finally see why and how that show hooked so many people.

All we'd seen thus far were this season - awful! - and the 2nd season on DVD, which was better than this year's episodes but far from riveting. (We saw the second season on DVD before seeing the first season on DVD for reasons I will not go into on a blog, other than to say that the Chinese bootlegging industry seems to have a problem with labeling.)^*

Anyway, as I say, we were watching the first season of 24 last night.

Midway through the episode, Dennis Haysbert & his wife are touring a Los Angeles school and the female principal says something like, "The problem with Los Angeles schools is the parents suck."

Haysbert nods sympathetically and the principal then whines -- I'm serious, she whines -- "What can the federal government do about parents?" at which point a bad guy appears and Haysbert seamlessly hands the principal off to his aide, Mike, who says he's been privileged to write the white paper on education for the Senator and is last heard muttering, "Parent involvement is very important."

Repeat after me.

There is nothing the federal government can do about the parents. Nothing that will matter, that is, unless the federal government plans to send all the parents back to school for remedial education (scroll down for CA Math Frameworks) so they can help with homework.

NCLB to the contrary.


meet the parents
Steve H on TIPS

what can the federal government do about parents?
Bong hits for bad parents
Bong hits for bad op ed writers


^{*We didn't buy a bootlegged DVD & wouldn't buy one. On the other hand, we would watch one if a friend just so happened to bring one back from China.}

Teacher to Teacher initiative

Cassy went to a Teacher to Teacher conference in Phoenix last week.

Sounds promising.

I need to move to Arizona.