A conference on Building Learning Communities — right here in Weston! I don’t know much about it, but it’s led by Wellesley’s distinguished former tech coordinator, Alan November, and the blurb looks interesting. Stay tuned for more info…
Month: May 2005
Chris Lydon redux
Yesterday Christopher Lydon returned to NPR with his new show/blog called Open Source. Day #2 concluded a few minutes ago. Actually, of course, it was only the broadcast portion that concluded a few minutes ago. The Internet portion — the… Read More ›
An argument from continuity
Two sophomores approached my colleague Josh with a question: “How can we construct a fair 5-sided die?” Josh posed a prior question: Is it even possible to construct such a die? He fashioned an interesting argument from continuity: Consider two… Read More ›
Intel, security, and Apple
Paul Otellini, the new CEO of Intel, says that he “spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter’s computer,” according to a Wall Street Journal article about its recent All Things Digital conference. When asked whether a computer… Read More ›
The new SAT
An interesting column by Mark Franek concerning the writing section of the new SAT includes the following observation: The writing section is entirely new — 70 percent of it is composed of pesky multiple-choice grammatical questions (where students aren’t writing… Read More ›
The view from college math
Rudbeckia Hirta (a clever pseudonym for a math professor who carefully keeps her true identity hidden) observes: Due to reasons beyond my understanding, high school math and college math are completely unaligned. The K-12 system sends us students whose knowledge… Read More ›
William of Orange
The newest member of our family: William of Orange
Where visuals fail
Some of us couldn’t possibly forget the 1969 draft lottery, the new and supposedly “fair” system to pick who was going to be sent to Vietnam. My Algebra 2 class is studying probability and was remarkably interested in learning about… Read More ›
Don’t do this
From this morning’s Boston Globe: A public school teacher fed up with his students’ behavior found a way to berate them in the context of a class assignment. The Jefferson Parish teacher wrote and distributed a two-page essay to his… Read More ›
Do department names matter?
As in most high schools, computer science courses at Weston High School are taught under the aegis of the Math Department. (One of the first exceptions to this rule was Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, where we spun off a separate… Read More ›
High-school math in the 21st century?
What math applications are taught in high school? Principally parabolic arches and widget-manufacturing, of course. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but the principle holds. We teach applications like those rather than cryptography and models of voting. At the… Read More ›
Martin Gardner for pennies
The Mathematical Association of America is selling a CD containing 15 Martin Gardner books (the entire collection of his Scientific American columns) for a mere $55.95 — or $44.95 if you’re a member!
Where are the girls?
Why do so few girls sign up for computer programming courses in high school? High school may be too late. The problem might be starting much earlier. Even in fourth grade at The Saturday Course (see my post on 5/21),… Read More ›
Math license plates
Winners and other entries in the Math License Plate contest.
Harvard does a good deed
In addition to my day job at Weston High School — and my Saturday job at The Saturday Course — I teach during the summer in an extraordinary program known as the Crimson Summer Academy at Harvard University. In its… Read More ›
A presentation in 10 minutes or less?
Dennis and Jim and I have been invited to present a paper at the TeachScheme Tenth Anniversary Workshop in Providence on June 11. At first we were allocated ten minutes! Not ten minutes apiece, but ten minutes total. But wait,… Read More ›
How to approach a probability problem
If you are dealt a hand of five cards, what is the probability that you have three diamonds and two clubs? There are (at least) two different approaches to this kind of problem: The chance the first card is a… Read More ›
Learning in fourth grade — on Saturdays
For about half of the Saturdays each year, I teach in a wonderful program called The Saturday Course. This is an enrichment program for gifted and talented public-school and parochial-school students in grades four through six. Small classes, dedicated faculty,… Read More ›
Risks and probabilities
We know that both adults and kids are notoriously bad at estimating probabilities. Bruce Schneier (one of the world’s leading experts on security, cryptography, etc.) has this to say concerning risks and probabilities: One of the things I routinely tell… Read More ›
Kids can’t concentrate? Don’t believe it!
Most exciting event of the week: I’ve been sitting here proctoring MCAS for the past two and a half hours. Actually, it isn’t exciting (surprise, surprise). But I’ve gotten quite a lot of work done. I don’t think I’m allowed… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 