Debbie at RJ Julia tomorrow morning

From Debbie:

I'll be speaking/q & a'ing tomorrow (March 1 at 11 a.m.) at RJ Julia in Madison, CT. Come say hello if you are in the area.

Donna Jackson's new(ish) book

The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life

Donna and I have been out of touch way too long!

Blast from the past

The Tri-State Consortium tries and fails to Trailblazerize my district

Really existing Common Core

Part 1: Help Desk, Common Core edition

Our high school principal explains the centrality of modeling to high school math:

55:23 This is a very important slide and one that you’ll hear me talk about a number of times.

Because modeling, we really look at modeling as the way to really permeate through all of the different levels of mathematics at the high school level. And we really look at it from a standpoint of pedagogy. When we talk about modeling, what we’re really talking about is the conceptual side of mathematics. Recently, and there’s been a shift to a very computational format for teaching mathematics, especially at the high school level. And that’s where we would start to break things down and scaffold them into very fine points. But what we have found is mathematics teachers over the last 10, 15, 20 years, when this pattern was happening, was that students were starting to learn their broader understandings of mathematics. 56:19 There was a big need to pull back and get back to the point of teaching to deeper understanding and to the conceptualization of math, not just about being able to compute the correct answer. So modeling we really look at as the link to be able to do that. It’s the opportunity to create real-life problem-solving situations where students need to understand the conceptualization of what’s going on in the math as well as how it relates to the real world.

Geometry, obviously, is when we start talking about shapes and sizes and the relative position of objects, and statistics and probability gives us the opportunity to start looking at mathematics and creating analysis and really looking into the chances of opportunity and things occurring.

57:07 So again, as I mentioned, modeling becomes a real important focal point for us. And the phrase that we’ve been talking about is it becomes this umbrella for us. It’s the umbrella that brings the whole mathematics curriculum at the high school level together, and a way for us to keep progressing through and thinking about how it matches up. So when we think about constantly naming and reinforcing the work that the students are doing we want to constantly bring them back as well to these broader-scale concepts. 57:39 So this slide and the next slide starts to talk about that even within those conceptual designs that I mentioned before, even within algebra, there’s an aspect of modeling that’s critical and important for them to understand in the algebra as well as the other mathematical concepts within.

Similarly you have functions here, and again, there are pieces of it that we pull out and we understand how do we create real-life conceptualization and contextualization for our students so that when they’re working through this, they understand again not just the specific calculation of an equation or formula but what it really relates to.

Similarly we do the same things in geometry and we do the same things in statistics and probability. Again, for me, this is about teaching to big ideas and perspective. We’ve been talking at the school about deep understanding and I said that would be one of those shifts that we keep coming back to, and I think that that’s really one of the most important messages that we can deliver about the mathematics instruction and how the Common Core starts to create a shift for us.

Irvington UFSD School Board Meeting - February 11th, 2014

This strikes me as fundamentally wrong, but if you guys tell me it's sound, I'll have to revise my view.

My understanding of math, of what math is, is that …. mathematics is not essentially, or even first and foremost, a system for representing empirical reality. The fact that math so powerfully -- and so eternally -- does capture many aspects of empirical reality is, in my view, either a) beside the point, or b) creepy.

Math, as I think of math, has a mathiness that cannot be reduced to modeling; math is a thing unto itself and should be taught as a thing unto itself -- or, at least, students should be made aware of the fact that to a mathematician math is not just a code-writing tool.

(Again, setting aside the possibility that math is just a code-writing tool.)

"Constructionism"

Constructionism is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and making in a public, guided, collaborative process including feedback from peers, not just from teachers. They explore and discover instead of being force fed information, or subjected to a regime of social control as in the Prussian system adopted in the US and elsewhere, sometimes called Instructionism. Constructionist guidance has to be informed by a knowledge of what there is to explore and discover, including our ignorance, and of a variety of approaches that can be used for children at different developmental levels with various degrees of preparation.

More on this topic can be found by exploring Google using keywords such as "constructionism", "education", "philosophy". See for instance openworldlearning, Seymour Papert's website, http://www.papert.org , and the wikipedia article on constructionist learning. Constructionism is implemented on the OLPC XO in the form of collaborative discovery.

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Attributed to Confucius.

Constructionism is built on the foundation of Constructivism, the theory of childhood learning created by Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and many others.

One Laptop Per Child

No fun.

Help Desk, Common Core edition

Two weeks ago, when our high school administrators gave a presentation devoted exclusively to Common Core "shifts" ("shifts," not "curriculum areas") the principal told us that henceforth math will be taught as modeling first and foremost. All math, it seems, in all math courses.

That strikes me as a terrible idea. Dreary, too.

Math for math's sake, math as a liberal art, math as a thing of beauty...math in my district is apparently a vocational art, not a liberal one. Kids are going to be explaining their answers a lot, too. (The explanation we saw opened with the words "We used the rules we have learned about discriminants.")

If you have thoughts, let me know.

Helicopter parent thread at the Atlantic

The possibly-inevitable helicopter parent thread has erupted at the Atlantic, so if any of you has the time or inclination to leave a comment, I hope you will.

I've just left this one:

I'm Catherine, a 'character' in the book (for the record, I tutored my own son for SAT math & took the test myself, once.)

Reading this passage I see that a fairly important section of the chapter has been omitted, and that is Debbie's attitude toward her son's grades.

The problem wasn't the Bs.

The problem was that her son was sliding by. He was underachieving, as his math teacher says.

Actually, I have a copy of the manuscript - here's the section that appears in the book but not in the excerpt:

"For me–and this was where I parted ways with the school–the issue wasn’t grades. I would have been proud of Ethan’s B’s if the math teacher had bounced in and said, “Ethan’s a hard worker.” But that’s not what he said, and it wasn’t what I was seeing. Ethan was taking the easy path, and the school was in his camp. The administrators thought Ethan, a happy-go-lucky, disorganized middle school boy with ADHD, should determine his own academic goals."

The boy whose parents were told they should be happy with Cs (in high school) is a friend of my family; I contributed his story to the book. That boy also has ADHD and his case was one of very significant underachievement.

With both boys, the school's approach to an underachieving student with ADHD and a 504 plan was to push back against the parents instead of providing the "accommodations" the boys needed to function as well as their peers (and which the school is obligated to provide).

And in both cases, too, the boys ended up transferring to Catholic schools where they did much better without any SPED 'services' at all. (Neither family is Catholic.)

Judging by some of the emails Debbie's been receiving, parents of kids with ADHD seem pretty often to be the target of 'helicopter parent' judgments made by school administrators.

I'm love to know how many parents have this experience.

Debbie has now had several emails from parents with the same story: an underachieving child with ADHD, a school administrator conveying the message that a) parents shouldn't "push" and b) they're the only parents who are pushing.

I'm now wondering how many people with kids on 504 plans are explicitly told, by school personnel, that "letting" their child "fail" is a good motivator for children with ADHD.

Debbie Stier is in The New Yorker & on The Today Show tomorrow!

Big Score: When Mom Takes the SAT by Elizabeth Kolbert 

What a day!

Google speaks...

...through Tom Friedman, no less:

The least important attribute they look for is “expertise.” Said Bock: “If you take somebody who has high cognitive ability, is innately curious, willing to learn and has emergent leadership skills, and you hire them as an H.R. person or finance person, and they have no content knowledge, and you compare them with someone who’s been doing just one thing and is a world expert, the expert will go: ‘I’ve seen this 100 times before; here’s what you do.’ ” Most of the time the nonexpert will come up with the same answer, added Bock, “because most of the time it’s not that hard.” Sure, once in a while they will mess it up, he said, but once in a while they’ll also come up with an answer that is totally new. And there is huge value in that.

How to Get a Job at Google
FEB. 22, 2014 | NY Times

I am praying our superintendent doesn't see this.

UPDATE: Daniel Willingham on the actual research. Thank heavens we have him.

Uncommon Students in the Common Core

I have a piece on how special ed students are faring under the new Common Core Standards on the online Atlantic:

The stubbornness of thought

I've just come across the best explanation of the "Don't think of elephants" effect I've ever read:

Byrne is also right to emphasize the stubbornness of thought. Once you think something, it is very difficult to eradicate that idea from your mind. The late, brilliant social psychologist Dan Wegner described this as the great irony of mental control: in order to insure that you aren’t thinking about an unwanted idea, you have to continually turn your mind to that very idea. How do you know that you aren’t thinking of a white bear driving a red Ferrari unless you think about whether you’re thinking it?

FEBRUARY 19, 2014
THE POWERLESSNESS OF POSITIVE THINKING
POSTED BY ADAM ALTER

The known unknown

So last week I submitted the following list of questions prior to the high school administration's Common Core presentation:

On math:

• Jason Zimba, “lead architect” of CC math standards, says that CC math will not prepare students for STEM careers or for admission to selective colleges (see attached). How are we dealing with that?
• Has the high school coordinated with grades K-8 to discuss whether teachers in those grades are using CC’s slower math sequence – and if so, with how many students?

On ELA:

• Whither the flipped classroom? Common Core requires more reading, more challenging reading, and broader reading: how does “more reading” square with students spending up to two hours a night watching Powerpoints?
• Are students reading any texts written prior to the 20th century?
• Are students reading any of the exemplar texts recommended by Common Core guidelines?
• How much time in English class is devoted to nonfiction?
• What types of nonfiction are students reading in English class?
• Has The Lucifer Effect been retired?
• Will next summer’s reading lists be consistent with Common Core’s emphasis upon serious works of literary fiction and nonfiction?
• Has any thought been given to creating a coherent, sequential, historically-organized curriculum in literary studies that would allow students to perceive the influence of earlier works on later ones (a critical component in understanding and appreciating fiction)?
• Has any thought been given to providing a serious survey course in British literature?
• Has any thought been given to teaching the Bible as literature (again: critically important to understanding the allusions in fiction)?
• What does “close reading” look like at Irvington High School? (Since we last spoke, I’ve read the CC exemplars of close reading. The middle school’s work example, although it does show a student using evidence from the text to support a point, isn’t a close reading as CC defines the term.)

Superintendent response:

Catherine,

The presentation that has been planned for tonight is consistent with those that were delivered for the elementary and middle school levels and highlights the shifts associated with CCLS. Tonight’s presentation will not address specific concerns or topics within any one curriculum area.

Kris

Kristopher Harrison, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools

That's not the right answer.

Question from Jen

What do you all think of My Math from McGraw Hill?

My Math is aligned to the CCSS and provides Differentiated Instruction through My Learning Station and Real-World Problem-Solving Readers. I will submit the request for a live webinar with a specialist as soon as I hear back from you.

Sounds ominous, but I haven't gone to look through yet.

I have looked through Jumpmath and would love to use it -- however, they don't have US versions of Grades 1-3 yet, only 4-7 (and our area is K-4). I could deal with explaining to kids about color vs. colour and meter vs. meter, but I'm not sure other teachers (or some parents) would be as, um, easy-going?!

Anyway, any knowledge that people have of My Math -- or of US schools using Jumpmath materials would be great.

And I do promise to do my own homework as well, but it will be the weekend before I have time to do a good job of looking through the curriculum. Unless there's so little of it there that we won't be able to tell about it anyway!

Thank you for any help the blog readers can give! --

Conjunction junction, après le déluge

I was searching for a transcript of Conjunction Junction when I came across the following exegesis of conjunctions, also entitled "Conjunction Junction" & inside a Prezi presentation, no less:

…if a conjunction is the 'Hitch,' the matchmaker, then the clauses are the two strapping young lovers (the two parts being joined).

• Independent clauses can stand alone as sentences. In our Hitch analogy, they are the sassy, strong independent sugar mamas and sugar daddies.
• Subordinate clauses are the gold diggers. They cannot stand alone as sentences. They begin with subordinate conjunctions, and are NEEDY.
• They are like parasites. They depend on independent clauses for survival.

I've just read this passage out loud to Ed who says, "Obviously you should never use subordinate clauses."

Yet more evidence that something happened in 1985. ^*

Something bad.


^* Wikipedia tells us that the first run of Schoolhouse Rock began in 1973 and ended in 1985.

Onward and upward

In The Economist:

Estonia’s government has commissioned Mr Wolfram’s consultancy in Oxfordshire to modernise maths courses for secondary-school pupils. Starting this month, it will pilot lessons built around open-ended problems which have no single solution. One example: “What’s the best algorithm for picking a romantic date?” (Possible answer: go on more dates with a lower quality threshold to maximise the chance of success.) Another: “Am I drunk?”, which leads into quantitative analysis involving body masses, rates of alcohol absorption and other variables.

Time for a Ceasefire | Feb 1st 2014 | SHANGHAI AND TEL AVIV

John Mighton's article on JUMP Math in AMS Notices

John Mighton, the Canadian mathematician (and playwright) who created JUMP Math, has an article worth reading in the current issue of AMS Notices. 

He provides probably the only description I've seen that really gives meaning to the word "balanced approach":

"H. Wu has warned against drawing false dichotomies in math education (for instance, between concepts and deep understanding versus procedures and algorithms). One dichotomy is particularly damaging to students: the false opposition between “explicit” or “direct instruction” versus “discovery” or “student-centered” instruction. Current research in cognitive science suggests that effective lessons should combine elements of both approaches. In 2011 A. Alfieri et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 164 studies of discovery-based learning and concluded that “unassisted discovery does not benefit learners,” whereas discovery combined with “feedback, worked examples, scaffolding and elicited explanations do[es].”

"An effective lesson can be student-centered but still led by the teacher. Research in cognitive science suggests that, while it is important to teach to the strengths of the brain (by allowing students to explore and discover concepts on their own), it is also important to take account of the weaknesses of the brain. Our brains are easily overwhelmed by too much new information, we have limited working memories, we need practice to consolidate skills and concepts, and we learn bigger concepts by first mastering smaller component concepts and skills."

So when a school administrator tells you "We use a balanced approach", the chances are fairly good that they are not doing what Mighton is writing about above.

Allison on kids and textbooks

More bad news on the Powerpoint curriculum

My district, my district

They've been keeping me busy.

They've been keeping Allison busy, too.

• Allison on flipped classrooms
• Allison on her AP history class in high school 
• Allison on every actual instance of flipping she's seen

We are seriously on the on the wrong track around here.

Tyranny of the tidy

It is fortunate for contemporary prophets that most of their predictions are as swiftly forgotten as made, for paper, while it may be used in a metaphorical sense by the electronics industry, has also remained stubbornly literal. The more digital information sped around the world, the more people wanted to print it out. From 1992 to 2002, world consumption of paper and board products grew from 250m tonnes to 325m.

Insecurity, said the visionaries: children clutching on to familiar objects as the world accelerates past them. As the value of tech stocks rose, bosses became increasingly determined to prove that they “got it”. One way of demonstrating that they were truly wired was to espouse the paperless vision.

A few of them tried to impose the vision on their employees. The most dramatic of these experiments took place at the offices of Chiat/Day, an American advertising agency. In 1993, Jay Chiat, the boss, had a revelation while on the ski slopes, and realised that his employees' minds were trapped by the boxes they were working in. Free their bodies from the box and you would free their minds. They were, accordingly, installed in offices without desks or filing cabinets. There were sofas to sit on and a few special rooms for meetings. There was nowhere to keep any paper; indeed, nobody was supposed to keep paper.

Chiat/Day's employees behaved like any group of refugees torn from familiar surroundings. They tried to rebuild their world. One woman bought a child's red wagon, put her paper files in it and trailed it around the corridors after her. Most people recreated their desks in the boots of their cars, where they stored their files and notebooks, dashing in and out of the building to the parking lot during meetings. Groups of workers took permanent control of meeting rooms and a shanty-town of desks grew up. The company was eventually bought by a traditionalist rival and normal life resumed.

The public sector got the bug too, though rather later. Panting along behind the curve, the British government committed £200m (then $290m) in 2001 to developing a paperless school. Baroness Ashton of Upholland, launching the scheme, waved a paper and pencil around, predicting their eventual demise .


The revenge of the trees

In most quarters, however, the fate of the tech stocks has taken the shine off those futuristic visions. The world is kinder to the past, these days, and to tools that have proved their value over millennia. A sign of the times is the publication of an excellent book* by Richard Harper and Abigail Sellen which details the many virtues of paper and the many workplaces in which it remains surprisingly important.

Air-traffic control, for example, does not, at first glance, seem a likely candidate. The business of monitoring incoming aircraft and predicting their future course, which depends on measurement and mathematics, sounds as though it should be entirely electronic. Yet paper remains an essential part of the air-traffic control system in Britain.

Each air-traffic controller works in a team of about five staff. Information about each incoming plane in that controller's sector is printed out on a piece of paper—a flight progress strip, about eight inches long and an inch deep. As the plane moves across the controller's sector, the strip is annotated—with, for instance, speed or altitude changes. On the basis of those annotations, different team members can do their job—working out, for instance, the implications of those changes for the next sector. In a busy sector, one team may have 50 strips on display.

Many attempts have been made to get rid of the flight progress strips. The only way of doing away with them, it turns out, is to give air-traffic controllers smaller areas to cover. For larger areas—which means a more complex job—the paper strips are essential. “They are a jolly efficient means of annotating information,” says Richard Wright of Britain's National Air Traffic Services. “The controllers can read them at a glance. If we replace them it will have to be with something better. They will be with us for some time yet.”

Paper's importance to the air-traffic controllers illustrates some of the reasons why it survives. It can be annotated more easily than text on a screen can; those marks can be seen more easily by several people than can digits on a screen; and it can be moved around, thus conveying more information.

[snip]

Has anyone written a definitive account of the book as intrinsically paper-based?

The growing distinction between 'meaningful' and 'worthless" college degrees

As American college completion rates continue to climb, George Will foresees a time when society will sharply distinguish "between those with meaningful college degrees and those with worthless ones".

Today, the dominant distinction defining socioeconomic class is between those with and without college degrees. Graduates earn 70 percent more than those with only high school diplomas. In 1980, the difference was just 30 percent.

Soon the crucial distinction will be between those with meaningful college degrees and those with worthless ones. Many colleges are becoming less demanding as they become more expensive: They rake in money — much of it from government-subsidized tuition grants — by taking in many marginally qualified students who are motivated only to acquire a credential and who learn little.

Today's "college students are learning less than they used to".

Lindsey reported that in 1961, full-time college students reported studying 25 hours a week on average; by 2003, average studying time had fallen to 13 hours. Half of today’s students take no courses requiring more than 20 pages of writing in a semester. Given the role of practice in developing expertise, “the conclusion that college students are learning less than they used to seems unavoidable.” Small wonder those with college degrees occupying jobs that do not require a high school diploma include 1.4 million retail salespeople and cashiers, half a million waiters, bartenders and janitors, and many more.

Most college graduates are underemployed

Related:

• A college degree has become the new high school diploma (Cost of College)
• College graduates are no longer ‘special’ (Cost of College)

(Previously posted at Cost of College)