Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 85

• Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

  By ljd42 on August 10, 2013

  “Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.” So observes Farhad Manjoo, in a well-reasoned article entitled “Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.” This  is not a matter of opinion; it’s… Read More ›

• College admissions, the achievement gap, and throwing money at the problem

  By ljd42 on August 9, 2013

  Boston College (2), Boston University (2), Brandeis, Clark, Denison, Framingham State, Hamilton, Harvard, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Northeastern (2), Skidmore, Suffolk, Tufts, U. of Maine, UNH, UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, Union, Wheaton, and Williams. That’s the complete list of where the… Read More ›

• From strangers to family

  By ljd42 on August 8, 2013

  Yesterday evening the Crimson Summer Academy held its Tenth Annual Celebration to recognize the conclusion of another summer’s hard work. (Hard to believe that it’s been ten years!) Among the many fine presenters, one in particular stood out: the junior class… Read More ›

• Surrounded by police

  By ljd42 on August 7, 2013

  “The house next door is surrounded by police, including a swat team.” This wasn’t really what I wanted to hear (four hours ago) in a phone call from Barbara. By now, of course, you’ve probably heard the main story: two… Read More ›

• How many levels should there be?

  By ljd42 on August 5, 2013

  “I don’t want to stay in Honors Geometry. It’s too difficult!” “I’m bored in regular Geometry. It’s too easy!” We hear remarks like these from a sprinkling of students — sometimes both of them  from the same student — usually… Read More ›

• Wall to Nowhere

  By ljd42 on August 4, 2013

  

  Sarah Palin may have her Bridge to Nowhere, but Lesley University in Cambridge apparently has its Wall to Nowhere. I spotted this hard-to-miss wall in the parking lot of the Shops at Porter, part of Lesley University. As you can… Read More ›

• All iPads, all the time?

  By ljd42 on August 3, 2013

  Can we survive in the classroom if we entirely replace laptop computers with tablets? Last summer we converted from laptops to iPads for the incoming sophomores at the Crimson Summer Academy. This summer we expanded the program to the juniors…. Read More ›

• Plagiarism: Pro and con

  By ljd42 on August 2, 2013

  Pro and con? Perhaps you think this is a deliberately provocative title. Every teacher, after all, is vehemently against plagiarism, right? We are justifiably outraged when a student turns in a paper in which whole paragraphs are cribbed unattributed from… Read More ›

• Graphing lines

  By ljd42 on August 1, 2013

  So here’s the question: should we teach students that the slope-intercept form of the equation of a line is y = mx + b ? Or should we teach it as y = a + bx ? And does it matter? I contend that it does matter, and that there are several good reasons… Read More ›

• “It’s all mine,” says Douglas

  By ljd42 on July 31, 2013

  

• Not Harry Potter

  By ljd42 on July 30, 2013

  Just finished reading the first of J.K. Rowling’s two post-Harry-Potter novels. This was The Casual Vacancy, the one she published under her real name. On the whole, my reaction was far more positive than negative. It has very little in common… Read More ›

• T-R-E-A-T-S

  By ljd42 on July 29, 2013

  Now we have to spell out “T-R-E-A-T-S” instead of saying the whole word…otherwise this is what happens:

• Finally resuming the blog…

  By ljd42 on July 28, 2013

  …after a four-month hiatus. Stay tuned…    

• Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Concert

  By ljd42 on March 11, 2013

  Yesterday afternoon, Barbara and I attended a beautiful concert given by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at Symphony Hall. Picture yourself there. Close your eyes and just listen. You forget that this was a youth orchestra; you think that the… Read More ›

• As Good as it Gets

  By ljd42 on March 10, 2013

  So I managed to watch three quarters of As Good as it Gets before deciding it was time to make dinner and I wasn’t interested in finishing this 1997 movie. Despite an excellent performance (of course) from Jack Nicholson, it all just… Read More ›

• As you know, college admissions have become more competitive.

  By ljd42 on March 8, 2013

  Does it matter that the most competitive colleges are harder to get into than they used to be? It certainly matters at Weston, and I’m sure at other top-ranked high schools as well. The question is whether the net effects… Read More ›

• AIME revised

  By ljd42 on March 6, 2013

  Contrary to my post of February 22, it turns out that Weston actually has nine students, not eight, who qualified for the AIME. Pravina Samaratunga (junior) took the qualifying test at a different location and therefore wasn’t included in my original list…. Read More ›

• Ruth's Chris

  By ljd42 on February 28, 2013

  Barbara and I went to Ruth’s Chris last night — the first time for either of us at any Ruth’s Chris location. The positives outweighed the negatives, but… Here’s the scoop. By and large the food was excellent. We both… Read More ›

• Double Indemnity

  By ljd42 on February 27, 2013

  No spoilers here. I finally saw Double Indemnity, which I should have seen long ago. If you haven’t seen it, do so. This 1944 noir classic is surprising and modern for its time period, although it will still feel outdated to anyone… Read More ›

• The Joy of x

  By ljd42 on February 25, 2013

  Steven Strogatz has made a useful contribution to the surprisingly large set of math books written for the general public: The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity. I have to admit that I started out… Read More ›

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