Comments on: The Rule Of Least Power: An Initial Approach /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/ less helpful Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:04:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 By: Dan Meyer in the ATL—the highlight of my summer « Quantum Progress /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-304748 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:04:49 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-304748 […] and I’ve been following him since the early days. I started following him when he was dropping tennis balls against felt wall backdrops, and even camped out digitally to score tickets for TEDxNYED 2010, where I got to rock out to […]

]]> By: Computers are dumb – make smarter e-Learning « The Usable Learning Blog /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-253519 Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:02:44 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-253519 […] It was actually pretty revelatory to me — one of view shifts that picks your head up and sets it back down at a 45 degree angle, and you don’t see things the same afterwards. Lest you think I’m overselling it, set aside time to watch the presentation.  There’s also a very good explanation of his approach to these questions on his blog here: /?p=1928 […]

]]> By: uberVU - social comments /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-251734 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:33:22 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-251734 Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mister_gallant: Great blog post by Dan Meyer – /?p=1928…

]]> By: Dan Meyer /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-247632 Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:00:55 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-247632

the only use I can find for my textbook anymore is to provide some practice and the occasional ski lift problem that inspires me to go and find or create the digital media that matches what they are trying to do.

Right. I find inspiring contextual stuff in my textbook but the textbook kills it by providing the necessary inputs and only the necessary inputs, by prescribing a route through the problem and then pointing frantically at that route in steps a, b, c, and d. Nothing to do but go out and recreate the scene properly yourself.

]]> By: Cliff /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-247594 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:58:49 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-247594 Dan
the only use I can find for my textbook anymore is to provide some practice and the occasional ski lift problem that inspires me to go and find or create the digital media that matches what they are trying to do. It’s almost impossible to sit here and think, hey I’m teaching adding polynomials tomorrow I need a picture of a “widget”.
I’m not sure that science teachers get that it’s built in to most of their objectives from the start and it’s just not for math. I hope that you and the open source guys can build that repository for us because my LCD projector is way under used and we just don’t have the time and resources to do it alone.
By the way, implementing your assessment system this year and I love it so far. Thanks for all you do!!

]]> By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » Notes From Foo /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-247581 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:17:50 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-247581 […] The Rule of Least Power: An Initial Approach […]

]]> By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » Impatience With Irresolution, pt 2: Part Of The Solution /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-207541 Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:53:50 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-207541 […] introduction, most everyone could see why your textbook’s halfhearted stab at real-world relevance withers next to a single, compelling image, to which we gradually apply a mathematical framework, only as […]

]]> By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » The Math Textbook I Would Buy /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-199654 Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:01:41 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-199654 […] fact is that dead-tree textbooks are at a disadvantage here. Like I said before, I am generally uninspired by my textbook’s perfunctory stabs at real-world relevance but even when […]

]]> By: Chels /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-194454 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:32:31 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-194454 I loved this example of helping students build their knowledge. I am a currently a student teacher and have been exploring different methods for engaging students. I agree that text books can box students in and reduce the amount of positive exploration and curiosity.

Your example of the tennis ball was engaging. I loved breaking the slides up and using student questions to guide the lesson. It is lessons where students feel like they are part of the process that true learning happens. The students had to discover the information, which made it more like a puzzle or a mystery, and what child doesn’t like to solve a mystery!

In some of the early comments to this blog, the question of the shadow was brought to attention. I had also thought about this, but I believe that it is something that can be explored with the students the next day. It is fine to redirect students back to the objective, but their questions should be addressed later on. If our desire is for students to really question and become engaged, we have to indulge their questions and acknowledge the importance of their thoughts.

]]> By: Jason Dyer /2008/the-rule-of-least-power-an-initial-approach/#comment-194265 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:19:27 +0000 /?p=1928#comment-194265 The study found that students may benefit more from abstract math than through concrete examples, especially in being able to apply those concepts to other situations. It seems as if the students who learned the math through a ‘real-world’ example were not as easily able to transfer that math to other examples.

This study was questionable in a number of ways, but I will simply point out the primary one that the real-world example was horribly confusing.

More applicable would be an explanation of the applicability of e (to Algebra II students) as lim n->inf(1+1/n)^n versus something that falls naturally out of an interest rate problem.

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