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Troy Patterson

The Problem with Exemplars | Ideas and Thoughts - 0 views

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    "problems with rubrics"
Troy Patterson

Introduce Word Problems to Students Sooner, Studies Say - Education Week - 1 views

  • If Ms. Smith’s 8th grade algebra class works through 10 word problems in an hour, and Ms. Jones’ class works through 10 equation problems during the same time, which class is likely to learn more math concepts by the end of class?
Ron King

Student Engagement More Complex, Changeable Than Thought | University of Pittsburgh News - 0 views

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    "Enhancing student engagement has been identified as the key to addressing problems of low achievement, high levels of student misbehavior, alienation, and high dropout rates." - Pitt professor Ming-Te Wang
Ron King

ctillustrated.com | - 1 views

shared by Ron King on 18 Mar 12 - No Cached
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    A cartoon guide to solving problems, designing systems and understanding human behavior!
Ron King

Phillips Exeter Academy | Hands On Math - 0 views

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    The Exeter Mathematics Institute courses are tailored and designed for the needs of each school district. These sample course descriptions are examples of courses that have been offered in various school districts over the years. In most of these courses, we use the same Exeter Mathematics Problem Sets that are used during the Exeter school year. In the Geometer's Sketchpad course and in all of the hands-on courses, we use materials that have been specifically developed by Exeter Math Institute instructors. All of these materials are available using the links below
Ron King

Bay Area Math Olympiad - 0 views

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    Archive of Previous Problems & Solutions
Ron King

Can't We Do Better? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    THE latest results in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which compare how well 15-year-olds in 65 cities and countries can apply math, science and reading skills to solve real-world problems were released last week, and it wasn't pretty for the home team. Andreas Schleicher, who manages PISA, told the Department of Education: "Three years ago, I came here with a special report benchmarking the U.S. against some of the best performing and rapidly improving education systems. Most of them have pulled further ahead, whether it is Brazil that advanced from the bottom, Germany and Poland that moved from adequate to good, or Shanghai and Singapore that moved from good to great. The math results of top-performer Shanghai are now two-and-a-half school years ahead even of those in Massachusetts - itself a leader within the U.S."
Ron King

Affirmation Addiction | Elise Jamison - 0 views

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    Hi, my name is Elise, and I am an affirmation addict. Wow. That was hard. But, hey, they say the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem. Okay, lets be honest, an affirmation addict isn't an actual disease but at this point, it should be. Google's secondary definition of the word affirmation is "Emotional support of encouragement." As human beings, this is something essential to survival, however, my generation has taken it to another level. As a direct result of social media, we crave affirmations from our peers in the form of likes, favorites, shares, retweets, reblogs, and revines. Its almost as if we become irrelevant without loads of internet attention, and with all these new social network apps popping up left and right, keeping up with it all is exhausting. At what point do we draw the line?
Troy Patterson

The best way to understand math is learning how to fail productively - Quartz - 1 views

  • Students who are presented with unfamiliar concepts, asked to work through them, and then taught the solution significantly outperform those who are taught through formal instruction and problem-solving. The approach is both utterly intuitive—we learn from mistakes—and completely counter-intuitive: letting kids flail around with unfamiliar math concepts seems both inefficient and potentially damaging to their confidence.
  • So far, teachers have mixed reactions. They recognize that the approach is good but they worry about efficiency and standardized tests: will kids fall on high-stakes national and international tests?
  • Kapur uses the research to make his case. Students get more output (deeper learning) for the same input (hours of instruction), which presents another problem: teachers have to get out of the way. “They [teachers] say it’s stressful to teach this way,” he says. “It’s easier to tell them [students] what you know.”
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  • In fact, Kapur theorizes in one of his studies that direct instruction might close students’ minds. Once a teacher presents a solution, students may no longer see the possibility of other solutions, or more creative approaches.
Troy Patterson

Principal: Why our new educator evaluation system is unethical - 0 views

  • A few years ago, a student at my high school was having a terrible time passing one of the exams needed to earn a Regents Diploma.
  • Mary has a learning disability that truly impacts her retention and analytical thinking.
  • Because she was a special education student, at the time there was an easier exam available, the RCT, which she could take and then use to earn a local high school diploma instead of the Regents Diploma.
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  • Regents Diploma serves as a motivator for our students while providing an objective (though imperfect) measure of accomplishment.
  • If they do not pass a test the first time, it is not awful if they take it again—we use it as a diagnostic, help them fill the learning gaps, and only the passing score goes on the transcript
  • in Mary’s case, to ask her to take that test yet once again would have been tantamount to child abuse.
  • Mary’s story, therefore, points to a key reason why evaluating teachers and principals by test scores is wrong.
  • It illustrates how the problems with value-added measures of performance go well beyond the technicalities of validity and reliability.
  • The basic rule is this: No measure of performance used for high-stakes purposes should put the best interests of students in conflict with the best interests of the adults who serve them.
  • I will just point out that under that system I may be penalized if future students like Mary do not achieve a 65 on the Regents exam.
  • Mary and I can still make the choice to say “enough”, but it may cost me a “point”, if a majority of students who had the same middle school scores on math and English tests that she did years before, pass the test.
  • But I can also be less concerned about the VAM-based evaluation system because it’s very likely to be biased in favor of those like me who lead schools that have only one or two students like Mary every year.
  • When we have an ELL (English language learner) student with interrupted education arrive at our school, we often consider a plan that includes an extra year of high school.
  • last few years “four year graduation rates” are of high importance
  • four-year graduation rate as a high-stakes measure has resulted in the proliferation of “credit recovery” programs of dubious quality, along with teacher complaints of being pressured to pass students with poor attendance and grades, especially in schools under threat of closure.
  • On the one hand, they had a clear incentive to “test prep” for the recent Common Core exams, but they also knew that test prep was not the instruction that their students needed and deserved.
  • in New York and in many other Race to the Top states, continue to favor “form over substance” and allow the unintended consequences of a rushed models to be put in place.
  • Creating bell curves of relative educator performance may look like progress and science, but these are measures without meaning, and they do not help schools improve.
  • We can raise every bar and continue to add high-stakes measures. Or we can acknowledge and respond to the reality that school improvement takes time, capacity building, professional development, and financial support at the district, state and national levels.
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