Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.
I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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Critical friends
At yesterday’s faculty meeting, a group of teachers modeled the process of participating in a Critical Friends Group (CFG) in the context of Looking at Student Work (LASW). If you can get through the jargon, the combination of CFG and… Read More ›
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PopCo revisited
In the past two weeks I haven’t had as much time to read as I would like. I’m woefully behind on the Globe, and it’s only today that I’ve finally finished reading PopCo. In my post of 11/23, I gave… Read More ›
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"Units" and "unit tests"?
The other day we were talking about “summative assessments.”. In math a summative assessment usually translates to a unit test. But what about those of us who don’t give unit tests? About seven years ago, the Weston Math Department reformed… Read More ›
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Grading on a curve
In her latest post on Learning Curves, Rudbeckia Hirta describes two methods of grading: Around here there are two schools of thought for grading calculus classes: straight percentages or curving the grades. I favor the former with each letter grade… Read More ›
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Dimensional analysis
On tonight’s All Things Considered on NPR, Congressman Mike Sodrel (Republican of Indiana) says: The information that I get is, like most of my constituents, one-dimensional: it’s flat screen, flat paper. I wanted to see it 3-D.
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Student rights
Students in public high schools and middle schools should know their legal rights — as well as the risks they may be taking when attempting to exercise their rights. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an excellent FAQ on the subject…. Read More ›
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Vegan firefighters and Starbucks coffee
It’s a good thing to break stereotypes every now and again. Vegan firefighters? Sounds unlikely. Vegan Texans? Also sounds unlikely. Now we have a vegan firehouse in Texas! They started out as flexitarians, but became vegans over the course of… Read More ›
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Silber sees the light
Apparently I missed this direct quote from John Silber last month: I don’t believe in one-man rule.
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A half-Chinese Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving dinner was a bit unusual this year. As always, we went to my sister’s house in Somerville — nothing unusual about that. But why was so much of the conversation in Chinese? Let’s see… You first need to know… Read More ›
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A college perspective
Check out two fascinating posts — one yesterday, one today — from the pseudonymous Rudbeckia Hirta. Both of them lament the state of mathematical knowledge of college freshmen and ask what we high-school teachers are teaching them. Of course her… Read More ›
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PopCo
Popco, by Scarlett Thomas. I’m a perfect audience for this book, but I’m obviously not the intended audience for Allison Block, the ALA reviewer on Amazon.com: Mathematical puzzles. Mind-bending codes. A secret manuscript. And a cake recipe, too. Thomas’ latest… Read More ›
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The value of projects
Are projects valuable for students in a high-school math class? I suppose the answer must inevitably be, “Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.” OK, so we need to shift the terms of the question. We should ask, What kinds of… Read More ›
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Differentiated instruction
In this age of No Child Left Untested, our primary goal is apparently a 100% passing rate on standardized tests. But at least there’s a recognition by The Powers That Be that people learn in different ways and at different… Read More ›
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How people get to this page
It’s a bit puzzling to see how various readers found their way to this blog. Looking at the referrers, I wonder at some of the searches. Here are a few examples: Google: rachel, bartlett, chicago Google: venn, diagram, about, bubonic,… Read More ›
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God had a deadline
For the second time this year I came across a link to “The Eternal Flame,” a song that speaks to those of us who believe in the power, efficiency, and mathematical insight offered by the Lisp/Scheme/Logo family of computer programming… Read More ›
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Should we use textbooks?
Almost all math teachers (and 63% of teachers of other subjects as well*) distribute textbooks in our courses at the beginning of September. But then four different styles emerge: Some teachers go through the textbook chapter by chapter — in… Read More ›
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An unsolicited testimonial
I love my new Neoprene laptop case. It’s soft, it’s extremely lightweight, and it opens up in such a way that it’s remarkably easy to keep the case on while using the computer. What more can I say?
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Stopping to ask directions
An activity in one of my Saturday Course classes this morning was a crypto treasure hunt. Each group of three fifth-graders had to decrypt a cryptogram, leading to a somewhat mystifying plaintext, which in turn took them to a location… Read More ›
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Killing five birds with one stone
At a recent Math Department meeting, we discussed the question of whether we should offer more math electives. Currently the only non-AP electives that Weston offers are two one-semester Comp Sci courses, but we’re a small high school and probably… Read More ›
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The T Word
Why is it politically incorrect to point out that mathematical talent is one of the necessary components of doing well in high-level math courses? No one would expect that just any random kid could make the varsity football team. We… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 