Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 85

• Tricks? Not here!

  By ljd42 on September 20, 2013

  My colleague Donna Gonzalez and I have discovered that we often have similar points of view. One pet peeve we have in common is that we sometimes hear students (or even teachers!) talk about “tricks” for solving math problems. Making… Read More ›

• Is memorization necessary, evil, both, or neither?

  By ljd42 on September 17, 2013

  Ben Orlin has written a fine article for the Atlantic called “When Memorization Gets in the Way of Learning: A teacher’s quest to discourage his students from mindlessly reciting information,” along with an accompanying blog post called “Is memorization necessary, evil,… Read More ›

• The Autistic Brain

  By ljd42 on September 16, 2013

  An absorbing and fascinating book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum should be read by anyone in education. The latest work of the famous Temple Grandin, a well-known autistic biology professor, explores not only autism as a disorder of the mind but… Read More ›

• Linguistics, math, and second chances

  By ljd42 on September 15, 2013

  What a terrific speech! It was delivered in 2008 by the distinguished Stanford linguist Ivan Sag, who died too young just five days ago. It manages to take the reader all the way from youthful indiscretions to problems with college… Read More ›

• Computer programming in English class?

  By ljd42 on September 14, 2013

  

  How is it possible to persuade English teachers to teach computer programming (or “coding,” as people say today)? Maybe it can happen only in a private school? Why would anyone even want to insist that English teachers should teach programming? These are… Read More ›

• 27 new trig functions…and no more factoring

  By ljd42 on September 13, 2013

  My juniors will be excited to hear that there are now 27 new trig functions for them to learn, and that factoring will no longer be taught. It must be true, since I read it on the Internet. And it’s surely… Read More ›

• The real advantage of wealthier schools

  By ljd42 on September 12, 2013

  This title is stolen directly from an excellent piece by John Spencer, whose blog is always worth reading. It’s clear from context that Spencer lives in a middle-class district and teaches in a low-income one. This combination is of course… Read More ›

• On Looking

  By ljd42 on September 11, 2013

  “How do you like my new hairstyle?” “Um…what new hairstyle?” OK, I’m not the most observant person in the world, to put it mildly. But I’d like to get better. And I’m really interested in cities, and in psychology, and… Read More ›

• Cryptography and the NSA

  By ljd42 on September 10, 2013

  Everyone knows the big splash of news about the NSA revealed by Edward Snowden: “the NSA Is Breaking Most Encryption on the Internet,” in the words of foremost security/cryptography expert Bruce Schneier. This was a matter of great interest here… Read More ›

• The Golden Egg

  By ljd42 on September 9, 2013

  The Golden Egg is another fine novel by Donna Leon. This thoughtful novel rewards slow, careful reading — don’t expect a fast-paced thriller here. As is usual in Leon’s books, the city of Venice (where Leon lives) is one of the… Read More ›

• The Big Ideas of Algebra, Part Three

  By ljd42 on September 8, 2013

  

  Four or five years ago, I wrote a couple of posts on the Big Ideas of algebra: Part One was published on November 30, 2008; Part Two on January 7, 2009. It’s time for Part Three, isn’t it? Fortunately, the… Read More ›

• What does an IT department do?

  By ljd42 on September 7, 2013

  Speaking of the Math Curmudgeon, I’m glad I don’t teach where he teaches. At least we don’t have these problems. (Just don’t get me started on Infinite Campus…)

• What’s wrong with group work?

  By ljd42 on September 6, 2013

  I have truly mixed feelings about group work. In general, people learn more and get more done when collaborating with colleagues (or fellow students) than when they try to go it alone. And working with others is unquestionably a valuable… Read More ›

• The Child’s Child

  By ljd42 on September 5, 2013

  There’s no such thing as a bad book by Ruth Rendell. The Child’s Child, written under Rendell’s Barbara Vine pseudonym, must therefore be a good book. It’s the only possible logical deduction. Is The Child’s Child a mystery novel? Not really…. Read More ›

• “Geometry is the glue between statistics and computer science.”

  By ljd42 on September 4, 2013

  A provocative quotation: “Geometry is the glue between statistics and computer science.” Say what? Well, that’s what Michael Jordan claims. No, not that Michael Jordan. This one is a computer scientist from UC Berkeley. But what on earth does his… Read More ›

• The four pillars of high-school mathematics

  By ljd42 on September 3, 2013

  

  What do we teach in high-school math? If we look at the big picture —not at specific topics in specific courses — what do we teach? Numbers? Formulas? Algorithms? Taking standardized tests? All of the above? None of the above? There’s… Read More ›

• The Last Samurai

  By ljd42 on September 2, 2013

  

  What a fascinating story! There are several books by this title, but I’m talking about the first novel by Helen DeWitt, published in the year 2000. If you know me, you won’t wonder which half of the story I liked… Read More ›

• Blackout and All Clear

  By ljd42 on August 31, 2013

  Time travel stories are tricky. The author must either ignore the inevitable paradoxes or must find some plausible device for resolving them. (In a few cases, there’s a third option: the author decides to wallow in paradoxes, which can put… Read More ›

• The case against Algebra II?

  By ljd42 on August 29, 2013

  The reason these kids are upset is that they are required to do something they can’t do. They are forced, repeatedly, to stare at hairy, square- rooted, polynomialed horseradish clumps of mute symbology that irritate them, that stop them in… Read More ›

• The Cats’ House

  By ljd42 on August 27, 2013

  

    What an amazing book! Or perhaps I should say “What an amazing house!” Bob Walker and his wife Frances have turned their house into a jungle gym for their nine cats, as you can see in this image. But… Read More ›

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