Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 89

• AP classes are a scam (says John Tierney).

  By ljd42 on October 20, 2012

  In a recent article in The Atlantic, John Tierney claims that “Advanced Placement courses [are] one of the great frauds currently perpetrated on American high-school students… The AP classroom is where intellectual curiosity goes to die.” Like most other provocative essays, Tierney’s piece… Read More ›

• McCall Smith for the fifth time…or maybe sixth?

  By ljd42 on October 19, 2012

  I’ve written about Alexander McCall Smith before — several times. Maybe this is my fifth post…or even my sixth. It’s not that McCall Smith’s a great writer, nor that his books are especially thought-provoking. It’s just that they are truly entertaining… Read More ›

• Which is better? One point of view or two?

  By ljd42 on October 17, 2012

  For many years we have taught an introduction to logic as one of the first two units in Honors Geometry. Typically we present a single set of symbols and a single set of rules of inference, keeping everything consistent so… Read More ›

• Could it have anything to do with her gender?

  By ljd42 on October 15, 2012

  I don’t quite know where to begin. It’s not just that a highly respected math educator (a professor at Stanford, no less) has been unfairly attacked by a couple of mathematicians. The shocking thing is that the attacks are so… Read More ›

• What should a school smell like? What should it look like?

  By ljd42 on October 14, 2012

  In an opinion piece in the Boston Globe a couple of days ago, Carlo Rotella writes about the newly renovated K-8 school in his neighborhood.  “It’s lovely,” he observes, “but it’s too neat, and it smells wrong. Don’t get me wrong:… Read More ›

• Honors Geometry opens with a challenging start.

  By ljd42 on October 13, 2012

  It’s always hard to decide just how challenging the first month of Honors Geometry should be. Last year it was too easy. There were too many students who apparently said to themselves, “This course isn’t so hard.” As a result,… Read More ›

• Where'd You Go, Bernadette

  By ljd42 on October 12, 2012

  What a delicious novel! As a teacher in Lake Wobegon, I knew I was hooked from the first half page, which is a report card from a Seattle school that declares “Galer Street School is a place where compassion, academics,… Read More ›

• Fox and Hound

  By ljd42 on October 11, 2012

  Groupons, of course, are designed to have two principal advantages. The most obvious one is that they save you money. The other advantage is that they encourage you to try new places (surely the main reason businesses offer them). So… Read More ›

• Independent study

  By ljd42 on October 9, 2012

  Every year there are quite a few students who want to learn more than the regular courses can offer them, so they find a faculty advisor and create an independent study. Sometimes it’s truly created by the student, with the… Read More ›

• Upgrading to an iPhone 5

  By ljd42 on October 8, 2012

  What a nuisance it is to upgrade to an iPhone 5! I still have an iPhone 4, since I figured I would skip the 4S and wait for the 5. So I went to the Apple Store at the CambridgeSide… Read More ›

• AP pressure and other topics in today's Boston Globe Magazine education issue

  By ljd42 on October 7, 2012

  Normally I pay very little attention to the magazine section in the Boston Sunday Globe. It alway has a few interesting features — such as Dinner with Cupid (where I once detected a former student of mine as a participant!), Miss… Read More ›

• Karin Fossum

  By ljd42 on October 6, 2012

  I’ve recently read two novels by Karin Fossum, and I’m about to start a third. So I apparently like them well enough…but it’s still hard to summon up a great deal of excitement about this series. Fossum, you see, is… Read More ›

• First math meet of the year

  By ljd42 on October 5, 2012

  Yesterday was the first meet of the year in the Massachusetts Math League. Although we had lost our two stars from the past four years (they unaccountably graduated and left us), we really did very well. I was also pleased… Read More ›

• Back-to-School Night…and what about reference materials?

  By ljd42 on October 4, 2012

  Last night was another Back-to-School Night. As usual, I found it stimulating and enjoyable. By a strange quirk of the schedule, I was free the first two and the last two blocks, which left me with four “classes” in a… Read More ›

• Walking through the brick wall

  By ljd42 on October 2, 2012

  Because of the expansion and renovation of our physics classrooms, the doors were all relocated over the summer. The old entrance to Room 12 was bricked over, but the old sign remains. As it’s hard to walk through the brick wall, someone altered the… Read More ›

• Ashmont Grill, yet again

  By ljd42 on October 1, 2012

  OK, time to write about the Ashmont Grill for the nth time. For some reason, attendance at their Wine Club has been getting sparser and sparser each week. Actually, today was only the second time in several months that Barbara… Read More ›

• Dropbox

  By ljd42 on September 30, 2012

  I don’t want to sound like an ad…but Dropbox has changed my life. Really. One problem that I used to have was that I would have different versions of a given file: one on my desktop computer at home, one… Read More ›

• When will I ever use this in real life?

  By ljd42 on September 29, 2012

  I suspect that it’s not only math teachers who are faced with the question, “When will I ever use this in real life?” But I can only answer it from the math teacher’s point of view. One of my freshmen… Read More ›

• The myth of being required to teach yourself

  By ljd42 on September 28, 2012

  There’s an unfortunate myth that is believed by many Weston students and their parents. Like all myths, it isn’t true. Like most myths, it does contain a grain of truth. The myth goes something like this: “In order to succeed… Read More ›

• Douglas

  By ljd42 on June 28, 2012

  We have a new cat, a long-haired white beast with some dark gray smudges. He’s apparently about eight years old, according to the vet. We had to adopt him because he was a stray who had been hanging around on… Read More ›

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