Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 116

• Dorchester: 1630-1870

  By ljd42 on February 18, 2007

  It often happens that an event at the Dorchester Historical Society (DHS) is an informative experience. And it often happens that a DHS event is an enjoyable experience. Today’s presentation by Earl Taylor and John Goff was both. The title… Read More ›

• WoW and Second Life: follow-up

  By ljd42 on February 17, 2007

  This is a follow-up to my earlier post on Second Life (SL) vs. World of Warcraft (WoW). One of my students, Dan Spector, replies to that post by writing the following remarks in an email message to me (quoted by… Read More ›

• Modified open campus — a solution to tardiness, or would it make it worse?

  By ljd42 on February 15, 2007

  We have a problem at Weston High School. Actually, we have more than one — but there’s one problem I want to write about here: every day we have an extraordinary number of students coming late to school and/or late… Read More ›

• High-school dropout = criminal?

  By ljd42 on February 14, 2007

  Last night, Emily Rooney’s Greater Boston included a segment on truancy in the Boston public schools. One of her guests, Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral, whom I usually admire and respect, claimed that 50% of high-school dropouts (from Boston public… Read More ›

• Unlucky in Law

  By ljd42 on February 12, 2007

  I have a mixed reaction to Unlucky in Law, by Perri O’Shaughnessy. It’s a decent enough legal mystery, more-or-less in the John Grisham or Scott Turow vein. And it has an undeniably interesting plot, involving the Russian-American community in Monterey…. Read More ›

• Irrationality

  By ljd42 on February 11, 2007

  

  Rudbeckia Hirta reports that her college students have trouble understanding irrational numbers: Most of my students felt that 3 * sqrt(2) / 5 * sqrt(2) was irrational because of the sqrt(2). They didn’t remember that you can “cancel” (hate that… Read More ›

• An AP course makes the resume shine

  By ljd42 on February 9, 2007

  As in a great many other high schools, Weston sees more and more students each year taking Advanced Placement courses. Why is this happening? And is it a good thing? It’s easy to see why it’s happening. Weston students are… Read More ›

• Maths

  By ljd42 on February 8, 2007

  It’s helpful to read what the Brits say about maths teaching. I’ve recently started reading Mathematics in School, a journal published by the Mathematical Association (MA), which is more or less the British equivalent of our National Council of Teachers… Read More ›

• Overheard in Dorchester

  By ljd42 on February 7, 2007

  So I’m waiting in line at the deli section of the Stop & Shop at 545 Freeport St. in Dorchester, and the customer in front of me asks the clerk a question: Customer: Where are we? Clerk [in a surprised… Read More ›

• "worksheet for students: am i insane?"

  By ljd42 on February 6, 2007

  The aforementioned Jill Walker has posted a fascinating article entitled “worksheet for students: am i insane?” No, she’s not insane, although some of my students think she’s misguided. But I think she’s on to something. Take a good look at… Read More ›

• Fractal dimension retraction or converse error?

  By ljd42 on February 5, 2007

  As Ivars Peterson and others have pointed out, Jackson Pollock’s paintings can be analyzed mathematically as fractals, and they turn out to have a distinctive fractal dimension. As various articles have pointed out, inauthentic (forged) Pollocks have incorrect fractal dimensions…. Read More ›

• Second Life or WoW?

  By ljd42 on February 4, 2007

  Would I be interested in joining a 3-D virtual world in my copious free time, which doesn’t really exist? Some of my students have been trying to persuade me to play World of Warcraft (Wow). (That was the standard acronym,… Read More ›

• St. Alban's Fire

  By ljd42 on February 3, 2007

  Archer Mayor’s well-crafted series of police procedurals has a highly deserved reputation for strong and careful plotting. As a Vermonter, Mayor writes in a style that convincingly evokes the state of Vermont — as much so as Lawrence Block evokes… Read More ›

• Happy numbers, unhappy families

  By ljd42 on February 2, 2007

  One of my students came across the Wikipedia article on Happy Numbers and asked about it in precalculus class. This is the sort of topic for which Wikipedia is an excellent source; in fact, if I wanted to know about… Read More ›

• An ethical dilemma

  By ljd42 on February 1, 2007

  It is unethical, as I’m sure you know, for a teacher to reveal any individual student’s grade to another student. (Students reveal their own grades all the time, of course, but that’s their decision, not ours.) This principle placed one… Read More ›

• A Stab in the Dark

  By ljd42 on January 31, 2007

  Lawrence Block’s 1981 Matthew Scudder mystery, A Stab in the Dark, has recently been reissued in audiobook format. If you’ve only read some of the recent Scudder novels, where he’s a non-drinking alcoholic, you’ll find that A Stab in the… Read More ›

• Maybe we should try this in high school

  By ljd42 on January 30, 2007

  Rudbeckia Hirta, the pseudonymous math professor from a state university in the south, recounts a story with a delicious little idea at the end: So today I saw one of the football players in the class sending text messages on… Read More ›

• Wikipedia revisited

  By ljd42 on January 29, 2007

  My students have had a hard time finding any errors in Wikipedia (one of their assignments). Of course there are plenty of errors in it, so why was it so hard to find them? I think the issue is that… Read More ›

• Romantic pairings: inappropriate for high school?

  By ljd42 on January 28, 2007

  No, it’s not what you think. Of course there are romantic pairings in high school, and there’s no point in considering them inappropriate. But that’s not what this post is all about. The question is whether a precalculus class that’s… Read More ›

• Watch Your Back!

  By ljd42 on January 27, 2007

  I recently read another funny novel by Donald Westlake, Watch Your Back!, and I can recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor. Though nominally in the thriller genre, this entrant in the Dortmunder series manages to combine convincing… Read More ›

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