Group items tagged

Conrad Wolfram presentation on TED.com (filmed July 2010; posted Nov 2010). Wolfram argues that math applications are all around us, and that people in a ever-wider variety of workplaces are excited about math...but students are not. Wolfram argues that bringing computers into the math classroom would help improve math's relevancy -- and build excitement as well. Use the tag wolfram to look at his "knowledge engine," Wolfram Alpha.

By CC (Community College) Times, published April 21 2010. This article reports on Bill Gates's visit to Foothill College to observe the Math My Way program. From the article, "Math My Way groups cohorts of students who have similar math skill levels." Students then work in small groups, and one-on-one with instructors, as well as using both computer and paper drills and games.

By Kristen Amundson, Op/Ed, The Washington Post, May 27 2011. Amundson argues that the state of Virginia is doing itself a disservice by allowing high school students to graduate with a "standard diploma." The diploma requires only three years of math, leaving many students unprepared for college math and thus required to enroll in developmental math.

By Garry Boulard in Community College Times, published May 4 2010. The article looks at the finding that, the more times a student takes a specific developmental math course, the less likely he or she is to pass it. Quotes Paul Nolting, learning specialist, enrollment services advisor, and author of Winning at Math: Your Guide to Learning Mathematics Through Successful Study Skills.

NADE's Math SPIN (short for Special Professional Interest Network) facilitates interaction and sharing opportunities for developmental math faculty. There is an occasional newsletter (published here) as well as links, resources, and best practices.

Based in Washington State, the stated goals of this project are: (1) "aligning standards and expectations for mathematics....(2) increasing student success in completing math requirements in high school and college....(3) building capacity of teachers and instructors to align curriculum and instruction to standards....(4) communicating math expectations to students...." The project bridges the high school/college divide.

By Beth Fertig, reported on WNYC March 24, 2010. In this education feature, Fertig reports on an experimental afterschool program called School of One, an individualized math program where students work online with math tutors and also occasionally work together. Their self-paced work plan is based on frequent online assessments. Daniel Willingham is quoted for his work on learning styles. MP3 is available, in addition to the transcript.

By Alissa Gardenhire-Crooks, Herbert Collado, Kasey Martin, and Alma Castro with Thomas Brock and Genevieve Orr, published by MRDC in March 2010. The overview page (bookmarked) provides links to the Executive Summary and the full report (both available as PDFs). \nFrom the overview: "This study draws on the experiences of 87 African-American, Hispanic, and Native American men who were enrolled in developmental math courses at four Achieving the Dream institutions to find out more about what affects the success of men of color in community college."

Presentation was part of Ignite Great Lakes, July 30 2011. Maria Anderson is a futurist and math professor at Muskegon Community College. It's not enough to bookmark (or digitally hoard); we need a "learn this" button. Essentially, this is a more efficient bookmarking system where we revisit sites of interest and actually ask ourselves questions about the topics.

by Jon Marcus on The Hechinger Report, December 26, 2011. Open University, a successful British online public university to be used as a model in the U.S. The goal is to help students who are intimidated by higher education adapt to and succeed in college. Next Generation Learning Challenges, a Gates funded initiative, will adapt two free Open University, at-your-own-pace online courses for use at about a dozen U.S. colleges and universities this academic year: one to help students be more comfortable with math so they do better on placement tests or move more quickly through remedial courses, and another to teach students skills to prepare them for college.

by Derek Bruff, November 6, 2011. The best justification of the Innovation Lab premise that I have seen. "Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."" Often our students engage in what Ken Bain, vice provost and a historian at Montclair State University, calls strategic or surface learning, instead of the deep learning experiences we want them to have. Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient-they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning. Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community. My students might not see the beauty and power of mathematics, but they can look forward to participating in a community effort to learn about math. Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.

By Lisa M. Krieger, Physorg.com, June 27 2010. This article profiles the "exuberant founder and sole faculty member of the nonprofit Khan Academy," Sal Khan who creates short YouTube videos on a variety of educational topics, primarily (but not exclusively) math. You can find his work at http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy

on Ted.com

By Kara Spak, Chicago Sun-Times, May 31, 2011. This article cites a recent report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, which finds that "as many as one-third of students entering higher education need to take some sort of remedial or developmental course...." Putting a human face on these statistics is the profile of one student who graduated from high school with a 3.0 GPA and a B in "College Algebra" but still needed to take a non-credit developmental math course when she got to community college.

A program of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Statway focuses on helping community college students learn basic skills in statistics, data analysis, and quantitative reasoning as part of a one-year pathway. The ultimate goal of this pathway is preparation for college-level statistics. This home page to Statway also includes links to the project blog (called Pathways Connection) and to the project's mailing list. There are 19 community colleges affiliated with this project.

By Ian Quillen of the Digital Education (blog) in Education Week, September 2 2010. This study suggests that "Algebra I teachers who were trained in and used a program that allowed them to monitor students' progress on graphing calculators led to significantly improved achievement by their students on a researcher-designed test." This blog post (and the video link) both stress that it is the combination of technology AND professional development that has provided these positive results. \nNOTE: First link to Summary of Findings is a Texas Instruments report (TI produces the graphing calculator that is part of the study). However, the study was conducted with outside consultants, including SRI.

By David Hayward and originally published in April 2009 Integrating Technology column of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears; here it is part of the blog Expert Voices published by the National Sciences Digital Library. The post provides a great overview of Diigo, with advice on how middle school teachers can use it.

By Mary G. Visher, Kristin F. Butcher, and Oscar S. Cerna, published by Achieving the Dream, Feb 2010.