There’s a minimalism to teaching and learning math that I’ve always loved. With just a pencil and paper I can become a mathematician. With just one good question I can launch a math class. But now there’s a lot more… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Popularizers V: Raymond Smullyan
A very special island is inhabited only by knights and knaves. Knights always tell the truth, and knaves always lie. You meet two inhabitants: Zoey and Mel. Zoey tells you that Mel is a knave. Mel says, “Neither Zoey nor I… Read More ›
Webinar vs. debate: Supervising in an age of COVID
“At least,” I figured, “this webinar will surely be better than Tuesday’s debate.” Low bar, I know. (I had watched half of the debate before I couldn’t stand it any longer.) What I am referring to definitely surpassed that low… Read More ›
If 2020 hasn’t been depressing enough…
Just in case the year 2020 hasn’t been depressing enough, I was appalled to read today that 13% of millennials in Massachusetts believe that Jews caused the Holocaust. Other related statistics from the study by Schoen Cooperman Research are just… Read More ›
More about teaching remotely
Some schools are back to 100% in-person learning at this point, but most are starting with either hybrid (apparently called “blended” in NYC) or all-remote. As I am (thankfully) mostly retired, do I still have skin in the game? Well,… Read More ›
A math problem for the season
From this week’s issue of The New Yorker:
Facts, truth, math, and Donald Trump
Given Donald Trump’s uneasy relationship with facts (and a few other flaws), we all wonder how he has managed to maintain rock-steady approval from about 40% of Americans for the past four years. I was unwillingly forced to think about… Read More ›
Popularizers II: the amazing Martin Gardner
A few days ago I wrote about Isaac Asimov in his role as a popularizer of math and science. Today I will turn to another important popularizer, Martin Gardner. But first I return to make a few more remarks about… Read More ›
Popularizers I: Asimov on Numbers
Many popularizers are unjustly looked down upon by professional academic scientists and mathematicians. I learned about that as an early age, and I also learned to reject those snobby attitudes. That’s mostly because of my dad’s influence: even though he… Read More ›
Looking back over a summer of teaching remotely with Zoom and Canvas
So my course is over now, and I’m in the midst of final grading, which means I have a little perspective about how this new experience went. Twice this summer I’ve written about Zoom-based teaching and learning, first on July 3… Read More ›
Should everyone in your class be able to earn an A?
This question was inspired by a very interesting post in Computing Education Research Blog (anonymous, but probably by Mark Guzdial). There are (at least) three ways in which you might be interpreting it: Is it OK if everyone in the class… Read More ›
Stories are sticky. Statistics, not so much.
Last month I was listening to a Freakonomics episode that really stuck with me. That’s what it was about. Stickiness. As teachers, we would like our lessons to be sticky. As citizens, we would like certain political messages to be… Read More ›
School-reopening plans
Harvard staff writer Colleen Walsh asks whether we are “agonizing over school-reopening plans.” We certainly are! In fact, that’s all I seem to be reading about these days. Should schools open in-person, remote, or hybrid? Whether it’s Donald Trump’s screeds… Read More ›
High school students! You can learn linguistics online!
Linguistics is the science of language. While most often classified as a social science, it’s really an interdisciplinary field that sits at the intersection of social sciences, humanities, and STEM – language is such a fundamental piece of our collective… Read More ›
The myth of “learning styles”
It says here that 90% of teachers believe two related claims: There are four different learning styles — visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic. Lessons need to address all four. For several reasons I have long been skeptical of statements like the… Read More ›
I can’t give secure assessments in a remote teaching-and-learning setting!
Don’t tell anyone: there’s a dirty little secret here! I have some bad news: people cheat. More specifically, students cheat on tests and other assessments. So, how do you give secure assessments in a remote teaching-and-learning setting? It’s all too… Read More ›
Stuck in the past
You say you didn’t learn cryptography in high school or college? And you didn’t learn it on your own, as some of us did? It isn’t too late! In that case you’ve probably never heard of the Vigenère Cipher, so… Read More ›
How many books have you read this year?
According to Pew, the average adult reads — wait! median adult or mean adult?— OK, the median adult reads 12 books per year, whereas the mean is only 4. Ponder that discrepancy for a minute! We all know — though… Read More ›
Zoom vs. MCET: compare and contrast.
Everyone knows Zoom (the teleconferencing platform, that is, not the old PBS kids’ show). Everyone knows Zoom. Now, raise your hand if you know MCET. I thought so: everyone knows Zoom, but very few know MCET, which provided my first… Read More ›
I survived my first week of Zoom-based teaching.
Today, on July 3, I am telling you that I survived my first week. Not my first week of teaching, of course: what I survived was my first week of teaching with Zoom — although sometimes it did feel like… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 