Mar
19
The challenge
Filed Under Learning | 2 Comments
Belief 1: School should be life itself, not the preparation for it.
Belief 2: The task of the teacher is to create a learning environment.
Belief 3: ‘Modern mathematics teaching should start with problems and attempts at solving them, which should lead to a mathematics as a strategy of such attempts.’ (Erich Wittman)
Belief 4: Students learn best when they feel ownership of their education, when they learn things that matter to them, and when they learn together.
Belief 5: We need to meet kids where they are. Not where we wish they were.
These are some of my current beliefs.
In steps reality:
The chapter on matrices and transformations, in the textbook I teach from, introduces matrices out of a hat. The students are told to practice how to add, multiply, and find their inverse before anything is said of why matrices may be useful. When matrices are used to represent transformations it is kept as a secret why this approach may be useful.
The challenge:
Write a resource book (text book is a word with too many bad connotations) in harmony with the believes above that, among more important things, prepares them for the external IGCSE exam.
Mar
19
Dictionary
Filed Under Learning | Leave a Comment
- teacher – someone who tries to create a learning environment (my definition)
- a person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession; instructor (source)
- A person who cares enough about abusive and ungrateful teens to work for crappy pay and long hours while hoping someday students mature … (source)
Mar
8
To evaluate teachers is difficult. Can mathematics help? The formula above is part of a system of formulas to find out who should be sacked, who should get tenure, and who should be better paid.
The sad thing is that the system concludes that one of the best teachers, evaluated non-mathematically, is doing a worse job than 93% of her colleagues. With, hold on to your chairs, a margin of error so big that she may actually do a better job than 52% of them.
Read the amazing story here.
What’s the morale? That mathematical formulas are of no use or that they should be used with caution? If the latter, how should caution be exercised?