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Rebecca Patterson

News: A New Model Community College - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • In contrast, there has been relatively little controversy over a different kind of partnership between a company and a private college: a joint effort of Tiffin University, a small private institution in northeast Ohio, and Altius Education, a for-profit company based in San Francisco.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      This could be DR!!
  • every Ivy Bridge student is assigned a “personal success coach” — a non-instructional employee — who helps with everything from course selection to academic support to career counseling.
  • he is cautiously optimistic about the preliminary student success figures.
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  • One fear many educators have had about privatizing the community college model is that doing so might serve only wealthy, white students.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      And if we make it cheaper and asynchronous??
  • “Still, we wanted to ramp up our associate degree program but didn’t want to put start-up money into it. We thought we had an interesting concept and looked to partner with an investment group to get start-up funds and also get the enrollment moving along faster. We’ve always been a fairly entrepreneurial institution and have been willing to look at new options and opportunities.”
  • I wanted a partner that we would be comfortable with and for them to understand our commitment to keeping our reputation.”
  • All academic responsibilities and management, including course design and instruction, are controlled by Tiffin, which has hired additional faculty for Ivy Bridge. The “Cadillac enrollment management” of the college, as Slone calls it, is controlled by Altius.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      I realize that this is a different setup than one we have entertained, but I think we can extrapolate here. :-)
  • he says his biggest challenge is determining how much remediation the institution should offer its least prepared students.
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    Cooperation between a company and a community college. Hmm...
Rebecca Patterson

How Einstein Started Solving Its Math Problem - voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled: The Educ... - 0 views

  • Einstein's students were developing too many shortcuts and not enough understanding.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Number sense.
  • While 71 percent of its fourth graders meet state math goals, only 17 percent of its 11th graders do.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      54% drop.
  • At Einstein, the problem became clear when teachers gave fifth graders a simple test. They told them to put down their pencils and estimate answers to simple questions, different ones than they were used to.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Ahh, estimating!!!
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  • The kids were so wedded to formulas that they couldn't step back and reason through a problem without them.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Rules-based
  • Mathematicians call it a lack of number sense, an intuitive feel for numbers and how they relate to each other.
  • To get kids thinking more deeply about math, Einstein started using new math textbooks this year. Instead of teaching students a new algorithm and drilling them on it in problem after problem, it poses open questions that can be solved multiple ways. That forces kids to figure out what strategies fit a problem, instead of just mechanically following steps.
  • "Now there are fewer problems — but they really have to think."
  • Einstein isn't the only school taking algebra on earlier. San Diego Unified is also changing its elementary school curriculum to ease younger kids into algebraic reasoning. Thousands of teachers have been trained in the new methods, which link algebra to every grade.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Algebra prep in elementary school.
Rebecca Patterson

Blue Mars releases free iPhone, iPad apps - Hypergrid Business - 0 views

  • Avatar Reality, developers of the premium 3D virtual world and social platform, Blue Mars, today announced the release of Blue Mars Mobile, its first application for iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch®. Available for free, the app provides a new level of accessibility to Blue Mars and broadens its reach beyond the PC.
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    Avatar Reality, developers of the premium 3D virtual world and social platform, Blue Mars, today announced the release of Blue Mars Mobile, its first application for iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch®. Available for free, the app provides a new level of accessibility to Blue Mars and broadens its reach beyond the PC.
Rebecca Patterson

Epaati: The Best Damn Educational Software for Nepal - OLPC News - 0 views

  • Perhaps, but we have been working awfully hard to produce a final build of a software suite called Epaati, that will assist teaching children from both grade 2 and grade 6 (8 respectively 12 years old) maths and English.
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    Interesting programming. I wish they would have described it more.
Rebecca Patterson

PBS Program Will Promote Engineering to Middle School Students -- THE Journal - 0 views

  • PBS program "Design Squad Nation" has announced it will partner with Rocket21 to engage its community of tweens in the show's content and activities to help meet the demand for engineers in the job market in the years to come.
  • The use of social media is important to the venture, both through the Design Squad Nation and Rocket21 sites and through other social media sites. More information on Rocket21 can be found by liking Rocket21 on Facebook at facebook.com and by following Rocket21 on Twitter at twitter.com. Viewers also can follow Design Squad Nation on Facebook at facebook.com and through Design Squad Nation’s Twitter feed at twitter.com.
  •  
    News of new engineering possibilities.
Rebecca Patterson

Closing the math skills gap and boosting achievement | News | eClassroom News - 0 views

  • Sixth grade: Sixty-nine students, 1-2 hours a week, 45 percent passed. Of those who did not pass, four students gained more than a year’s progress in math on the TAKS test. Sevents grade: Twenty-six students 1-2 hours a week, 65 percent passed. Of those who did not pass, 3 students gained more than a year’s progress in math on the TAKS test. Eighth grade: Sixty students 1-2 hours a week, 63 percent passed. Of those who did not pass, 12 students gained more than a year’s progress in math on the TAKS test. After the second administration of the TAKS test, the total eighth grade pass rate rose from 74 percent to 86 percent. The only real difference was the use of Ascend Math for three weeks, where students worked six to nine hours a week before the second administration of the test. We had a few eighth grade students who have never passed a TAKS math in middle school or their entire academic lives until this year. We attribute this to the use of Ascend Math.
  • A major aspect was getting students to work on the program with fidelity. After meeting with students and parents, a rigorous schedule was implemented, along with automatic daily reminder phone calls and second calls to parents to inform them of the next day’s schedule. Students who missed a tutorial session are assigned a makeup day.
  • Parental buy in was important!
  •  
    The Ascend program: intense focus software.
Rebecca Patterson

Assessment Consortium Releases Math Content Specifications - Curriculum Matters - Educa... - 0 views

  • The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium has released its content specifications in math.
  • • #1: Students can explain and apply mathematical concepts and carry out mathematical procedures with precision and fluency. • #2: Students can frame and solve a range of complex problems in pure and applied mathematics. • #3: Students can clearly and precisely construct viable arguments to support their own reasoning and to critique the reasoning of others. • #4: Students can analyze complex, real-world scenarios and can use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems.
  • a new draft will be issued for comment on Sept. 19. That's the day that comment on the first-round math content specifications is due as well.
  •  
    Wondering if this is like standards or is it more of an assessment?
Rebecca Patterson

Reviving the Hand-Held Game Business by Adding a New Dimension - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • “The 3DS is sufficiently novel and cool to reverse this trend,” he said, predicting that it would sell out through the end of the year. “It will get people excited, and will make kids and parents forget the mobile phone.”
  • The novel touch-screen device does not require users to wear special glasses to see the 3-D images.
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    3D handheld game devices...SubQuan anyone?
Rebecca Patterson

Teachers turn learning upside down | 21st Century Education | eSchoolNews.com - 0 views

  • This new teaching and learning style, often called “flipped” or “inverted” learning, makes the students the focus of the class, not the teacher, by having students watch a lecture at home and then apply the lesson with the teacher in the classroom.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Concepts still haven't changed.
  • they should be able to leave my class knowing how to question, research, and test scientific claims regardless of what they choose to do afterwards
  • At the same time, I also feel that those students who do excel in STEM fields need to have classes that push them and challenge them with real-world problems, and not just memorized facts from a textbook.”
  •  
    Turning the tables: lecture at home > practice at school.
Rebecca Patterson

Without language, numbers make no sense - health - 07 February 2011 - New Scientist - 0 views

  • People need language to fully understand numbers. This discovery – long suspected, and now backed by strong evidence – may shed light on the way children acquire their number sense.
  • homesigners were given a set of objects and asked to use tokens to create a second set containing the same number of tokens as objects. Again, their accuracy dropped significantly above sets of three objects.
    • Rebecca Patterson
       
      Notice the number three seems to be the maximum. Does that correlate with subitizing without training?
  • Children learn this count list well before they actually understand that "four" refers to four objects rather than three or six, says Michael Frank at Stanford University in California.
Anna-Marie Robertson

It's how you play the game - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News - 0 views

  • In a small grove at the entrance to the school, first graders acquire the rudiments of addition and subtraction by collecting pine cones and stones and solving problems contained in notes attached to trees. Another group plays a memory game, using cards with arithmetic exercises whose solutions are found on a game board painted on the playground. The second grade is engaged in a treasure hunt, with arithmetic exercises that send children scurrying from one location to another. The third graders are at the seashore, researching the sand 0f(and not one of them has run into the water 0f). An arithmetic class for the fourth grade is underway in the gym: Small groups of children are scattered charmingly across the floor, playing games with boxes. Here the major attraction is the group standing in a line opposite the teacher, who holds up signs showing numbers that are the result of multiplication. The children’s task is to say which two numbers were multiplied to produce this result. Those who give the right answer also get to shoot a basketball.
    • Anna-Marie Robertson
       
      This reminds me of what Cooper is trying to create in SL with the SQ's
Rebecca Patterson

Education Week: Common-Core Math Standards Don't Add Up - 0 views

  • “Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution.”
  • “Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Mathematically proficient students make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations.”
  • “Use appropriate tools strategically. Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem.”
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  • “Model with mathematics. Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace.”
  • “Attend to precision. Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning.”
  • “Look for and make use of structure. Mathematically proficient students look closely to discern a pattern or structure,” and “Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Mathematically proficient students notice if calculations are repeated, and look both for general methods and shortcuts.”
  • Missing entirely from the practice standards is a discussion of how to pose problems, and, more generally, how to ask powerful questions. This is a telling oversight. Unlike in school, real problems are not served up on a platter, fully formed. The standards-writers overlooked the most basic fact of people with genuine math expertise: They find problems!
  • Is it too late to change this? I hope not. Solving our problem of poor mathematics education depends upon it.
  •  
    Interesting opinion piece about how the new standards in math miss the mark.
Rebecca Patterson

12 Ways To Be More Search Savvy | MindShift - 0 views

  • there are ways to be even more efficient, more search-savvy. And it’s our responsibility to teach kids how to find and research information, how to judge its veracity, and when it’s time to ask for a grownup’s help.
  • CONFIRM CONTENT. It’s common to find the same phrases and sentences on different sites all over the Web because people duplicate content all the time. To determine the original source of the content, you can look at the date it was written, but that’s also not entirely accurate. When authors edit an article, that changes the posting date. So even if it was originally written in 2005, the date will say 2011 if it was edited last week. Again, here’s when you put on your journalist hat. Trustworthy websites typically have an “errata column” or something like it where mistakes or corrections are posted
  • KEEP IT SIMPLE. Use search terms the way you’d like to see them on a Web site.
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  • DEFINE OPERATOR. This has to be one of the best items of Google’s offerings. To learn the definition of a word, just type “Define,” then the word.
  • ONE MORE SEARCH. It’s one thing to do a quick search for Lady Gaga’s birthday. But for more important questions that have a direct implication on your life, do one more search. Go deeper and find a second corroborating source, just like a journalist would.
  • FIND THE SOURCE. Russell knows first-hand that Web sites can sometimes publish false information. Though we all know how to find contact information for an organization, confirm the phone number, look for the author’s names and trustworthy hallmarks like logos,
  • FUNCTIONS GALORE. You can use Google to do calculations (just type in “Square root of 99″ or “Convert 12 inches to mm”). You can search patents, images, videos, language translations. And even if you can’t remember a Google function, you can easily search it.
  • LINK OPERATOR. The way Google ranks sites can be confusing. Sometimes even when a site has negative comments or reviews, it still rises to the top of the search list simply because it’s been mentioned the most. When you want to know what other sites are saying about the site you’re searching, type in “Link: www.yourwebsitename.com” and you’ll see all the posts that mention that site.
  • DON’T USE THE + SIGN. It might have negative side effects, Russell says. Adding the + sign will force the search engine to look for only that phrase and may tweak the search in a way you didn’t intend. That said, it’s a useful tool for looking up foreign words or very low-frequency words.
  • PAY ATTENTION TO “GOOGLE INSTANT.” In most cases, Google’s instant search function, which is fairly new, will accurately predict what you’re searching for and offer suggestions.
  • SWITCH ON SAFETY MODE. If you’ve got kids in the house, Russell suggests enabling safe search. In your Search Settings, scroll down to SafeSearch Filtering (or use Control F to find it quickly!) and choose what level filter you want to use. You can tailor it to every computer in the house. Google offers all kinds of safe search tips and functions on Google’s Family Safety Center.
  • CONTROL F. A deceptively simple tool, the Control F function (or Command F on Macs) allows you to immediately find the word you’re looking for on a page. After you’ve typed in your search, you can jump directly to the word or phrase in the search list.
  • LEFT-HAND SIDE TOOLS. Most people don’t notice these exist, but when you search a topic, a list of useful, interesting tools come up. For example, when you type in War of 1812, on the left hand side, you’ll see “Images,” “Videos,” etc., but below that you’ll see things like “Timeline,” which maps out a time sequence of events around the War of 1812 and links to each of those events. There’s also a dictionary, related searches, and a slew of other helpful links.
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    Not mathy...just really good information!!
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