Short version -- policies that stress small children to the point where they...
I am generally nervous about quoting overly partisan news sources. Even when the arguments are compelling, I am uncomfortable with discovery processes that seem to start with the conclusion.That said,...
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A different kind of name-the-states map
The cartoonist who created this explicitly say that it would be unfair to erase the names and use it as a name-the-states quiz, but I think it would make a great activity for small groups.
View ArticleHe ought to know...
Elwyn Berlekamp is one of the authors of the classic Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays. One of these days I need to open up a substantial thread on Winning Ways. In the meantime, here's a cool...
View ArticleNASA's Real World Mathematics
As I've mentioned before, there are a lot of great resources for educators at the Internet Archive and it's all in the public domain, which mean you can re-edit anything you find to fit your needs.
View ArticleRevisiting "The Battle for New York Schools: Eva Moskowitz vs. Mayor Bill de...
When following the education reform movement, it is enormously useful to step back from time to time and look at who was saying what a few years ago. As recently as 2009, it was almost impossible to...
View Article"Four times as likely"
I would have liked to have seen more detail in this NYT piece, but it's still worth reading. Black students are four times as likely to be suspended from charter schools as white students, according to...
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I don't actually need an excuse to post a Theremin video
... but if I did, I would point out that a clip of the instrument followed by a quick discussion is a great way of opening a lesson on the Cartesian coordinate system.In case you've forgotten:The...
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The quality control problems continue
A tutor with an after school program here in LA brought in this one. I believe it was from an eighth-graders homework assignment. He said the problems had seemed straightforward at first. Each had two...
View ArticleMore on Success Academy and discipline
Yes, there is a pattern.Cyril Josh Barker writing for the Amsterdam News:Fatima Geidi and Elizabeth Eloheim, who say their children were pushed out of Success Academy charter schools, brought their...
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More quality control issues -- Regents exams edition
Math teacher and blogger Patrick Honner has been looking closely at the NY State Math Regents exams and found questions like this: If...
View ArticleWord puzzles and problem solving -- another video in the series
As mentioned before, the plan here is to focus on content and fast turnaround while keeping the production quality adequate for now. In terms of content, the idea behind this particular series is to...
View ArticleAnother in the Puzzler's Guide to Problem Solving series -- turn GRASS GREEN
Another Lewis Carroll inspired doublet video.
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a 102 year old bit of perspective
...From Sam LoydThe problem with many of the education reform movement ideas is not so much that they're wrong, but that the reformers think they're the only ones to come up with them.
View ArticleRemember that old saying about trying the same thing and expecting different...
Here's an interesting one from Dean Dad that I've been meaning to go around to for a while:In fact, students taking a class for the second time pass it at lower rates than students taking it the first...
View ArticleIf we really want to close the achievement gap...
Perhaps the first step is simply making sure poor children receive adequate nutrition.From Microeconomic Insights via Mark Thoma:Adults who participated in the Food Stamp Program, renamed the...
View ArticleTFA's enrollment woes – the importance of putting numbers into context
[Originally posted at the statistics blog.] This Washington Post piece by Emma Brown on the problems at Teach For America is interesting on a number of levels, definitely something you should take a...
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Dudeney's Honeycomb
The object of this puzzle by Henry Dudeney is to find the hidden proverb. I'm thinking about doing a Puzzler's Guide to Problem Solving video on this, but I'm still working through the applicable...
View ArticleMatt Yglesias may not be helping his cause -- REPOST
[I originally posted this at the Stat blog in 2013 but it's going to be relevant to an upcoming thread so I thought I'd reintroduce it to the conversation.] There was an odd exchange recently between...
View ArticleCosmo Garvin give us a tour of the Johnson/Rhee machine
Perhaps the saddest part is that, even after all this, there are still a number of movement reformers who continue to hold Michelle Rhee up as a martyr being so blunt because she cared so...
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Attention all history teachers/map enthusiasts/nerds
You will want to check out the following from XKCD (then the annotation from ExplainXKCD)
View ArticleWorth Carnahan's Divided Garden Puzzle
Another video in the Puzzler's Guide to Problem Solving series.
View ArticleWhy AP?
I always got the feeling that others saw something in the advanced placement program that I didn't. It was never entirely clear to me why people who so often complained that our schools were doing a...
View Article“Empowerment or Abandonment”
Dean Dad has some insightful things to say about the ways different students react to different teaching approaches.At the time, I felt confident in my overall philosophy, even if not necessarily in...
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