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There's one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don't - Quartz - 0 views

qz.com/...cel-at-math-and-those-who-dont math education intelligence psychology algebra
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 28 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Rebecca Patterson on 28 Oct 13
     
    "... you may be helping to perpetuate a pernicious myth that is harming underprivileged children-the myth of inborn genetic math ability." For high school math, inborn talent is just much less important than hard work, preparation, and self-confidence. Convincing students that they could make themselves smarter by hard work led them to work harder and get higher grades. In response to the lackluster high school math performance, some influential voices in American education policy have suggested simply teaching less math-for example, Andrew Hacker has called for algebra to no longer be a requirement. The subtext, of course, is that large numbers of American kids are simply not born with the ability to solve for x. Too many Americans go through life terrified of equations and mathematical symbols. We think what many of them are afraid of is "proving" themselves to be genetically inferior by failing to instantly comprehend the equations (when, of course, in reality, even a math professor would have to read closely). So they recoil from anything that looks like math, protesting: "I'm not a math person." Math education, we believe, is just the most glaring area of a slow and worrying shift. We see our country moving away from a culture of hard work toward a culture of belief in genetic determinism. In the debate between "nature vs. nurture," a critical third element-personal perseverance and effort-seems to have been sidelined. We want to bring it back, and we think that math is the best place to start.
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Texas community colleges reinvent developmental math | Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...es-reinvent-developmental-math education math research community colleges texas higher ed remediation
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • In Texas, students referred to developmental classes are 50 percent less likely than their peers to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year college. Math is often their biggest hurdle, and students are steered into algebra-based remediation regardless of their majors.
  • Texas appears to be the first state to adopt such a drastic rethinking of remedial math in all its community colleges.
  • Garcia said the first-year cost of the project will be around $2 million, a figure that doesn't include instructor salaries. The Texas Community College Association will contribute $300,000, with donors and individual colleges making up the balance.
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  • Working with the Dana Center, the community college association was able to get all 50 two-year college presidents to sign on.
  • The Texas project is inspired by the Carnegie Foundation’s work, developed with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, in which students needing math remediation weren’t all put on a path toward calculus.
  • Kay McClenney is a University of Texas at Austin project director who helped develop a recent report showing the scope of the remediation problem at the state’s community colleges.
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Connecticut May Let College Students Skip Remedial Classes - US News and World Report - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...students-skip-remedial-classes math remediation highered
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 10 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Rebecca Patterson on 10 Apr 12
     
    Co-requisite classes instead of pre-requisite. Connecticut's idea to change the large amounts of students not completing their programs due to a 70% remediation rate in the Community Colleges.
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Community Colleges Consider Math Options - US News and World Report - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...colleges-consider-math-options math education teaching learning Remedial-Math mathematics
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 03 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Statway mixes basic math concepts with statistics, enabling students to pass a college-level statistics class in the second semester. Quantway, which started its first pilot classes this month, teaches students how to "use mathematics and numerical reasoning to make sense of the world around them." After one semester, which includes algebraic skills, it's hoped that students will be able to pass a college math class.
  • If they need to review basic skills or learn an algebra concept, he provides "just in time instruction" on basic skills and algebraic concepts, teaching students information they can use immediately to solve problems.
  • Math is an "overpowering wall" that keeps students from higher education," wrote a Statway student. "Now there is hope ... not only to pursue higher education but to learn something that would really apply to our everyday life."
  • Rebecca Patterson on 03 Feb 12
     
    Nice article on the changes in Community Colleges and their remedial math programs. The Carnegie Institute and the Dana Foundation have teamed up here.
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Why Schools Don't Value Spatial Reasoning - Forbes - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...chools-value-spatial-reasoning education math teaching learning school news
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 31 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • I suspect that testing spatial reasoning, especially in a standardized way, is more difficult than standardizing the testing of math and verbal skills. Again, this has to do with the limitation of resources and the limitation of trying to test 3-dimensional reasoning on a 2-dimensional surface.
  • Which means that such skills are either seen as being “beneath” or unattainably advanced to most people.
  • Until that cultural change happens, though, I suspect that those kids and their parents interested in the world of spatial intelligence will still have to find avenues outside of school to hone their skills
  • Rebecca Patterson on 31 Dec 11
     
    Opinion piece regarding math process education versus spatial reasoning skills. Interesting!
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Harvard Education Letter - 0 views

www.hepg.org/515 education teaching learning Waldorf
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 05 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • While most Waldorf schools are elementaries, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped launch the first public Waldorf high school four years ago at the George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science in Sacramento, Calif., replacing a failed America’s Choice program in the building. Test scores have since risen dramatically: In 2008, 67 percent of 11th-graders scored “far below basic” or “below basic” in English; in 2011, just 12 percent did. Teachers are happier as well, says principal Allegra Allesandri. While many teachers spent the summer boning up on content, Allesandri’s teachers also honed skills in bookbinding, painting, and felting. Many Carver faculty gatherings include singing in harmony and playing games. “Those skills, which might be about singing, are also about working together successfully,” she says.
  • For example, at the Woodland Star Charter School in Sonoma County, Calif., test scores for 2010 show a stunning 81 percent of the second-graders scoring “below basic” or “far below basic,” compared with 32 percent of district peers. By eighth grade, however, none of the school’s students score in that level (in fact 89 percent are “proficient” or “advanced”), while 19 percent of district peers score in the lowest two levels and just 56 percent in the top two levels. Results have been less dramatic at some Waldorf-inspired charters, whose students in upper grades have scored about the same as district peers.
  • They still do project-based activities, start class with a verse perhaps by Albert Einstein, and end by thanking the teacher. But Bishop says the texts and 40-minute daily math lessons “look more like public school.”
  • Rebecca Patterson on 05 Nov 11
     
    Interesting article...wasn't Deborah in contact with these schools?
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Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html STEM retention math education science
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Research confirmed in the 1990s that students learn more by grappling with open-ended problems, like creating a computer game or designing an alternative energy system, than listening to lectures. While the National Science Foundation went on to finance pilot courses that employed interactive projects, when the money dried up, so did most of the courses.
  • he also says it’s inevitable that students will be lost. Some new students do not have a good feel for how deeply technical engineering is. Other bright students may have breezed through high school without developing disciplined habits. By contrast, students in China and India focus relentlessly on math and science from an early age.
  • The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long given freshmen only “pass” or “no record” grades in the first half of the year while they get used to the workload.
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Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the grades in the introductory math and science classes were among the lowest on campus. The chemistry department gave the lowest grades over all, averaging 2.78 out of 4, followed by mathematics at 2.90.
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11
       
      Wake Forest University
  • MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering. But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon. So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.”
  • Mr. Moniz’s experience illustrates how some of the best-prepared students find engineering education too narrow and lacking the passion of other fields. They also see easier ways to make money.
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PLoS ONE: The Enigma of Number: Why Children Find the Meanings of Even Small Number Wor... - 0 views

www.plosone.org/...10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022501 education math mathematics learning teaching research
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The Enigma of Number: Why Children Find the Meanings of Even Small Number Words Hard to Learn and How We Can Help Them Do Better
  • Rebecca Patterson on 30 Sep 11
     
    Nice article!
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How to Break the Cycle of Remedial College Classes - Education - GOOD - 0 views

www.good.is/...le-of-remedial-college-classes education teaching highered remediation
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 20 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • This month, more than half of community college freshmen and at least a third of university students started college already behind. They're in at least one remedial course that does not count toward a degree, thus beginning at least four months—and sometimes years—delayed in getting the degree they enrolled to earn.
  • Like many of their fellow freshmen nationally, a whopping 95 percent of high school graduates from West Hills who received As and Bs in their senior English courses did not "pass" the placement test. Yet when allowed to enroll in college-level courses instead of remedial classes, 86 percent successfully completed college-level English, lost no time in their progress, and stayed on course toward earning a degree.
  • Only 24 percent of students placed in the lowest level of English remedial courses in California ever get through.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 20 Sep 11
     
    Whoops...forgot to write that this is mostly reading stats, but they are remediation percentages.
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Views: 5 Myths of Remedial Ed - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...myths_about_remedial_education education learning teaching highered
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 18 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • And remedial education -- the ‘catch-up’ work now required for the nearly 40 percent of students who come to college lacking basic skills needed to succeed -- is a prime candidate for elimination on almost everybody’s list.
  • everyone admits that remedial education is not working, with just 25 percent of community college students who receive it going on to complete a college credential
  • colleges have not clearly articulated the skills that students must possess to be college-ready, students are blindsided when they are placed into remedial courses, and high schools don’t have a clear benchmark for preparing students for success.
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  • With so many adults returning to higher education, remedial education must be transformed to meet their needs. Institutions should provide a wide range of options for students based on their competency, recognizing that many don’t have time for semesterlong courses.
  • A study by the Board of Regents in Ohio -- one of the few states that actually have cost data for remedial education -- found that although 38 percent of incoming freshmen were taking remedial coursework. This translated to only 5 percent of actual full-time students, and around 3.6 percent of undergraduate instructional costs.
  • The lack of clear college-ready standards, poor assessment practices, the lack of customized learning options and the cost in time and money to students make it clear that postsecondary institutions are not committed to ensuring the success of millions of students who seek a college credential.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 18 Sep 11
     
    Remedial College Education Myths...good read!
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In turnabout, teachers give students Apples, hope iPads boost test scores - Wednesday, ... - 0 views

www.lasvegassun.com/...ive-students-apples-hope-ipads teaching learning education math school algebra mathematics tools
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The $49 Fuse application allows users to learn at their own pace, Blumenfeld said. If students miss a class, they can tap into about 400 video tutorials led by textbook author Edward Burger, a math professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. “Videos allow for anywhere, anytime instruction,” Blumenfeld said. “For students who might have missed class or didn’t understand the lesson, you can push a button and have it explained again and again. You have a teacher available anytime, anywhere.”
  • Test scores in Riverside, Calif., jumped 30 percentage points, from 60 percent to 90 percent proficiency in math, he said. A smaller iPad program in some of Chicago’s elementary schools also resulted in improvement, Ebert said.
  • Indeed, Algebra 1 is one of the most-failed courses in the School District, Ebert said. All Nevada 10th graders are tested on the freshman-level math subject before they can graduate. Only half of the students in Clark County passed the math section of the High School Proficiency Exam on their first try last year. A quarter of students won’t pass the math section by their senior year and, as a result, will fail to graduate. This year, the district has identified about 9,000 seniors who haven’t passed the proficiency exam. They are at risk of dropping out, Ebert said.
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  • At the time, the technology we used (in math class) was a graphing calculator,” he said. “Today, these kids have the privilege to learn math in a new, innovative way
  • Only the Fuse algebra application and a few key tools are loaded onto the devices. At school, students are blocked from inappropriate sites via firewalls. The App Store, where iPad users can purchase games and other applications, is locked on the device, but school officials are looking at opening the online store in the future. Freshman Catherine Rodriguez, 14, flashed a big smile as she received her new iPad. Math isn’t her strongest subject; she hopes the new technology will help her, she said. Passing math is a big concern for Rodriguez’s mother, who took three years to pass pre-algebra, she said.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11
     
    Interesting place to funnel school district money. There should be some good research coming out on this application in the next few years.
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PLoS ONE: Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later Schoo... - 0 views

www.plosone.org/...journal.pone.0023749 education math mathematics learning
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance
  • Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11
     
    Actual open access article. 8 page pdf...free!
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Math-based model for deep-water oil drilling - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...110825124254.htm education math mathematics model changes
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The deeper the well, the higher the pressure, and the higher the risks associated with tapping oil from wells. During drilling, when the pressure applied to balance the hydrocarbon pressure in a well is not great enough to overcome that exerted by gas and fluids in the rock formation drilled, water, gas, oil, or other formation fluid can enter the hole. This is called a "gas kick," which in worst-case scenarios can lead to blowouts. In a paper published earlier this month in the SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, author Steinar Evjepresents new analysis of a mathematical model that has applications to the study of such gas kicks in deep-water oil wells.
  • Simulators have become an important tool for the development of new, more efficient and safer drilling methods.
  • The use of mathematical models is important for the development of tools that can help simulate, and hence, increase control in deep-water well operations.
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  • "A simulator for drilling operations is composed of a set of nonlinear coupled partial differential equations that describe the simultaneous flow of hydrocarbons in a well. This mathematical model represents a 'virtual laboratory' where the finer mechanisms related to a number of different physical effects can be studied in detail," Evje goes on to explain.
  • In order to compute reliable solutions, it is crucial to have a model that is well defined mathematically. Mathematical methods are applied in order to derive upper and lower limits for various quantities like masses and fluid velocities, which provide insight into the parameters that are important for the control of these quantities. In addition, they allow proof of the existence of solutions for the model in a strict mathematical sense. In this paper, the author demonstrates that under certain assumptions, a solution exists.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 04 Sep 11
     
    Another applied mathematics scenario. (no stats - maybe I need to make a new group?)
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Mathematical model predicts weight with varying diet, exercise changes; Findings challe... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...110825193104.htm education math news model changes findings mathematics
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created a mathematical model -- and an accompanying online weight simulation tool -- of what happens when people of varying weights, diets and exercise habits try to change their weight.
  • However, the computer simulation of metabolism is meant as a research tool and not as a weight-loss guide for the public. The computer program can run simulations for changes in calories or exercise that would never be recommended for healthy weight loss. The researchers hope to use the knowledge gained from developing the model and from clinical trials in people to refine the tool for everyone.
  • "Mathematical modeling lets us make and test predictions about changes in weight and metabolism over time," Hall said. "We're developing research tools to accurately simulate physiological differences between people based on gender, age, height, and weight, as well as body fat and resting metabolic rate."
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  • Moving toward that goal, a more comprehensive mathematical model of human metabolism was used recently to design an NIH clinical trial that is comparing the effects of reducing fats versus carbohydrates in obese adults.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 04 Sep 11
     
    Not really stats here, but a mathematical model used for application. Great use of applied math.
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Back-to-school facts: $7 billion-plus in shopping and everything else - The Answer Shee... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...gIQA5CMgWJ_blog.html facts shopping mathematics math
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Back-to-school facts: $7 billion-plus in shopping and everything else
  • Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
     
    These are some very interesting statistics with links. Could use this with the data collection tool previously mentioned.
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Teachers' externships show real-world use of classwork | The Des Moines Register | DesM... - 0 views

www.desmoinesregister.com/...ow-real-world-use-of-classwork STEM learning teaching mathematics math education
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are growing at four times the rate of other career sectors, says the partnership, and Iowa's economy increasingly relies on high-tech jobs.
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Novato students learn algebra on the job - Marin Independent Journal - 0 views

www.marinij.com/...ci_18655506 students algebra job education math teaching learning news
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Williams' students are participants in the Novato Algebra Academy — a three-week program created by the North Bay Leadership Council and the Novato Unified School District that debuted Aug. 1. Based on a similar program in Santa Rosa, the Algebra Academy helps English language learners from Novato's middle schools master formulas and solve tough equations — and then shows them how businesses, government and athletes use that analytical process on the job.
  • "I met with the owners of each business two months ago to talk about what math they use and to create lesson plans based on that," Griffin said. "Most of it is basic algebra: you create equations, and you solve for different variables."
  • "Algebra is part of the required curriculum everybody must take if they want to be admitted to the CSU or UC systems," Murray said. "But a lot of students don't realize that they needed algebra until they start applying to colleges. Many of these students are not only English language learners, but the first in their family to even get an idea about going to college. So we want to provide them what assistance is out there."
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  • That's particularly true of Williams, who began working as a treatment plant intern while still a teenager. Now 22, Williams has created several YouTube videos on wastewater math. He ended his presentation last week by showing his students one of the questions from the plant operator examination — a complex equation whose answer required at least a page of careful analysis — and assuring them that they had the skills to complete it."All the algebra you've learned? You know all these formulas," Williams said. "And this problem is just one formula stacked on top of another."
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
       
      Know formulas or know concepts?
  • Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
     
    On the job math training
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States Fail to Raise Bar in Reading, Math Tests - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4006104576500053368341870.html mathematics education math states testing
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • The report shows huge disparities among the standards states set when their tests are converted to the NAEP's 500-point scale. In eighth-grade reading, for example, there is a 60-point difference between Texas, which has the lowest passing bar, and Missouri, which has the highest, according to the data. In eighth-grade math, there is a 71-point spread between the low, Tennessee, and the high, Massachusetts.
  • South Carolina was the only state to drop standards on every math and reading exam during the study period.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
     
    National comparisons.
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California reports eighth-grade dropout rate for first time - latimes.com - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...p-out-20110811,0,1975112.story california math teaching education mathematics news school reports
shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • "We still don't have an accurate way to determine who's dropping out," he said, citing studies that estimate L.A. Unified's four-year high school dropout rate at more than 50%. (The state-calculated dropout rate for L.A. Unified is 26.1%.)
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
       
      More California stats. Not pretty.
  • Statewide, about 3.5% of eighth-graders — 17,257 in all — left school and didn't return for ninth grade
  • Overall, 74.4% of California high school students graduated in four years, according to state data; 18.2% dropped out. The remainder were still in school (6.6%), were in non-diploma programs for disabled students (0.5%) or left high school by taking the General Educational Development (GED) Test (0.4%).
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  • The graduation rate is 68% for Latinos, 59% for African American students and 56% for students who are learning English. This compares with 83.4% for whites and 89.4% for Asians.
  • Among eighth-graders statewide, about 4,200 dropped out during the academic year; more than 13,000 finished eighth grade but didn't show up for ninth, the traditional beginning of high school.
  • L.A. Unified's estimated graduation rate for the four-year period is 55%. However, the state's new system places the district's rate at 64.2%.
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