At Weston High School we’re considering the use of mathematical symbol-manipulation software such as Mathematica or Maple. Our theory is to pick one of these for a trial run for a year — just one copy per teacher, for use… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Continuity and retention in math classes
I’m sure we’re not alone in finding that there’s distressingly little retention from year to year in our math classes. One of the big differences between honors and non-honors (“college-prep”) classes is that most students in the former can be… Read More ›
They're nerds in a good way
As usual, I picked up Barbara after work, and we asked each other, “How was your day?” I relayed three brief anecdotes to her: Just before one of my classes was about to start, I overheard one student say to… Read More ›
Hackers and Painters
You should definitely read Paul Graham’s highly opinionated book, the one with the unlikely title of Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. But the first thing you have to know, if you’re not a computer geek, is… Read More ›
This year we decided to cut back on the number of topics
Less is definitely more. In the first summer of the Crimson Summer Academy (2004) we attempted to explore two different (but related) topics in our Quantitative Reasoning (QR) course for rising sophomores: Visual Representations of Data and Models of Voting…. Read More ›
Quotation from a math student
Quotation from a math student at a college that will be unidentified to protect the innocent: That exam was unfair. You made us understand the material. I’ll memorize the phone book if you ask me to, but you can’t expect… Read More ›
Weston supports its schools
On Saturday the residents of Weston voted to override the restrictions of Proposition 2½, thereby providing another year of adequate funding for its schools. Yes, I know that “they can afford it,” but in all too many well-to-do towns the… Read More ›
Team-teaching CS and Art
So I’m teaching a course called “Create Your Own Computer Game” to fourth-graders at The Saturday Course, and last week I’m talking to Eileen, an artist who teaches “The Art of Drawing”; I happen to remark that some of the… Read More ›
Rating high schools
What kind of metric should we use in order to rate high schools (assuming, of course, that we should rate high schools comparatively, which is a big assumption). According to Newsweek, we should be calculating A/S, where A is the… Read More ›
Big Picture Curriculum Day
Today was the assigned date for the Math Department’s Big Picture Curriculum Day, which meant a full-day workshop with no math classes. Although we were not thrilled about having to miss two consecutive days of math classes — especially troublesome… Read More ›
Career Day
Just completed another successful Career Day at Weston High School. We started with keynote speakers: Barry and Eliot of Jordan’s Furniture — actually only Eliot, as Barry didn’t show up — or maybe it was Eliot who didn’t show up… Read More ›
Not too much eye contact
I wonder how many Weston students would want to go to Pensacola Christian College. Check out the fascinating article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which reports an interesting set of written and unwritten rules: At Pensacola any physical contact… Read More ›
Too much homework in fifth grade?
What’s happening with the lives of fifth-graders these days? Too many of my Saturday Course students have lives that are completely filled with homework, sports, music lessons, and all sorts of other activities. I suppose most of those have been… Read More ›
A student speaks out on MCAS
Michael Bendetson [real name used by permission] is a sophomore in my Algebra II class. Today he emerged from the first of many MCAS sessions with the observation that MCAS is supposed to promote education, and yet his math class… Read More ›
Homework: punishment or reward?
More than 400 students at Weston High School are participating in the Relay for Life, a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. Everyone is justifiably enthusiastic about this, since it’s a community effort supporting an excellent cause. But that’s not… Read More ›
Campaign for the education of the whole child
Schools must ensure every child has access to a rich array of subjects, including social studies, world languages, science, art, music, physical education, and recess, as well as reading and math… [T]he state must provide adequate resources to ensure that… Read More ›
Getting help from tutors and parents
“Everyone in Weston has a math tutor,” says my neighbor in Dorchester. “Kids in Weston do well in math because they all get help from their parents. And they all take math courses outside of school.” Of course this is… Read More ›
Two kinds of skepticism
As I mentioned in my post of March 11, some interesting issues were raised on the unfortunate March 10 episode of Numb3rs. There was no explicit mention of the dispute between two kinds of skepticism, but that was actually the… Read More ›
Taking the mission seriously
Earlier this year I tried to figure out whether I had a common mission in all the math classes that I teach. Here’s what I eventually came up with: To empower all students to represent the world quantitatively and to… Read More ›
Wiki values & learning curves
Why am I finding it so difficult to get used to be a writer on a wiki, not merely a reader? There’s something about the whole process that still feels alien to me. Somehow the learning curve seems unnecessarily steep…. Read More ›
Learning Strategies 