Education

A Mathematician’s Lament was Slashdotted weeks ago, but I finally sat down and read my way through the whole thing. Lockhart, a math professor who returned to elementary and high school math education, writes about the fundamental flaws he sees in how we approach teaching math, particularly at the youngest levels. He opens with two stories that describe in his view what music and art education would be like if they were taught in the same way math is taught: I was surprised to find myself in a regular school classroom— no easels, no tubes of paint. “Oh we don’t … Continue reading Math as Art

Thoughts on the approaching semester: Syllabi – There are two philosophies here, it seems. Go bare bones – who are you, what book is being used, and when are the exams. Or go all out – detailed policies on late homeworks, attendance, academic honesty, etc. and day-by-day breakdowns of every class meeting for the entire semester. I’ve been veering more and more towards the later, but that is really not my style. I’m thinking about how I can start to streamline. For now, I think it is going to vary by courses – low-level courses predominantly taken by freshman or … Continue reading T-minus 12 days

In response to Harvard releasing its internal report on their educational objectives, Steven Pinker discusses some reservations, more with the high-level phrasing than the specific steps to be taken, it seems [via Arts & Letters Daily]. Of particular interest – even at Harvard the debates about requiring science, how much science, and of what types for what reason take place. Pinker laments that the current argument for science education seems to have a greater requirement that the applicability to social issues be made the focus than other fields find required of themselves. While it isn’t a full argument, I thought … Continue reading Science in the university

I was chatting with a friend about life, and the topic rolled around to issues of grading and busting cheaters. Which led me to speculate about how awesome it would be if that awful reality show “Cheaters” was about academic dishonesty. Which led me to write the following: CHEATERS: ACADEMIA Scene: at bucolic college campus, a professor calls up a PI. Prof: “I think I have a case of cheating, but I need evidence.” PI: “Give me the details – I’ll build up a dossier.” Night vision camera shots of the professor at the computer using Turn-it-in PI: “These cases … Continue reading Next up, Survivor: Grad School…..

There are so many interesting things about the lesson plan marketplace site described in this article. Absolutely, teachers getting tips from other teachers instead of textbook publishers and other major corporations is a smart idea. At the college level, the mailing lists I am on for computing education often field requests for class activities of a certain style or around a certain topic, and they have some associated web repositories. But there are some things that strike me as odd about the auction model. First, I’m just surprised that there isn’t already a free website doing this – whether ad … Continue reading Lesson Marketplace

If you aren’t familiar with the process by which a textbook is created, I highly recommend this “Confessions of a Textbook Editor” article from a couple of years ago. It’s a short snapshot of the considerations that come into play, and the degree to which content is selected in order to avoid controversy from anyone. If you are interested in the topic, I recommend What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America by Joan Delfattore which I reviewed back in 2002, the book itself being even older than that. It seems the textbook industry has been pretty consistent over the … Continue reading Text Creation

Moebius Stripper asks an interesting question, in discussing a social-justice mathematics text: No, what bothers is this: is anyone familiar with a movement among social studies educators in secondary schools to use math in their courses, or does the movement toward interdisciplinary studies of social justice only go in the other direction? Coming from the math-and-science side of the spectrum myself (not to mention the post-secondary world), I can’t speak directly to what is happening in social science classrooms, but it is definitely the case that students are not graduating from high school with sufficient awareness of the connections between … Continue reading Cross-Curricular Mathematics