Comments on: Is This Press Release From 2012 or 1972?

By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » Pattern Matching In Khan Academy

dy/dan » Blog Archive » Pattern Matching In Khan Academy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:10:28 +0000

[…] when Khan Academy says the student knows that thing? (Pattern matching, after all, was one of Benny's techniques for gaming Individually Prescribed Instruction, Khan Academy's […]

By: Jim Craven

Jim Craven — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 11:05:16 +0000

Another “blast from the past” on Differentiated Instruction:

Adjusting the Program to the Child – Carleton W. Washburne

http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_195312_washburne.pdf

This is from 1953.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:13:53 +0000

Like Mary, I’m also an IPI “graduate” who did quite well in math. I loved doing the work, loved the tests, and clearly learned early math from the curriculum – I ended up a math major/math teacher. I can’t imagine my mid/low-level juniors actively pursuing any math (or other academic topic) on their own. They’re just not curious about anything except who said what to whom on Twitter. Individualization is a nice idea for the motivated (I guess that’s why IPI worked for me) but at some point, some students need to be pushed toward something.

By: blaw0013

blaw0013 — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 17:51:46 +0000

Wow, I am struck that the conversation doesn’t seem to make mention of what is learned, what children learn mathematics to be, and what children learn of themselves as learners & mathematicians.
This is not to condemn the ideas shared, the experiences of students (esp. @Mary)and teachers, it just seems to me that this continues to be the avoided conversation. What is math? What does it mean to know math? do math? What goals do we have for students w.r.t. learning math? What educational goals, more broadly, do we have for children?
I contend that answer that last question first, and then maybe tracking backwards through my questions, MUST define the space in which we design curriculum and pedagogy for what we have named “mathematics education.”

By: The Past Lives on in the Present: Customized Learning then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 08:00:46 +0000

[…] to Justin Reich and Dan Meyer for pointing me to IPI as a past reform that lives in the […]

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:01:21 +0000

Sandy:

One point that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, however, is the need for schools like Rocketship in school districts that cannot attract or retain the brightest and the best teachers. High quality teachers don’t want to be messiahs, they want to be teachers, to be respected, to earn a decent living, to have a life outside of the daily job. To teach in school districts where Rocketship is placing its charter schools, well, they aren’t places where the highly qualified want to live and work. So how else can we BEST give all children equity to a good quality education?

Something that's gotta be said here is these teachers are not working sustainable careers in education. Rocketship has them working extra hours, a policy that's enabled because they're largely staffed by young TFA grads who leave the field long before they've maxed out their professional development. Underserved areas need good teachers, true, but I don't know that Rocketship has found that solution.

By: Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:26:17 +0000

@Sandy There are currently TEACH grants, Sallie Mae and many states offer loan forgiveness for teaching in low income or “high need” subject areas. Most states have class size limits http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/infographics/13class_size_map.html so smaller classes would be a tweak rather than completely new laws. Teaching schedules and curriculum are set by the school, the district, or negotiated in the contracts (I know of at least one that limits teachers to only two different classes, or gives them an extra planning period if they have to teach three), so at the moment that’s a local issue, but could easily be made a state-level policy.
I agree that the “big reformers” are not funding or advocating policies like those, which would all be far less expensive than creating entire parallel educational systems. Almost makes you wonder if improving education is not their actual goal…

By: Sandy

Sandy — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 17:43:17 +0000

I agree whole-heartedly with you Bill, but I haven’t seen that implementation you are suggesting being put in place anywhere. If you have, tell me where. Tell me how they are funding it? I would like to support your ideas, but don’t know how because the big reformers are not putting their money towards intangibles.

By: Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:07:31 +0000

@Sandy So instead of improving conditions at those schools, we should ignore them? There are many ways to make conditions more attractive to teachers (smaller class sizes, better schedules, loan forgiveness, more autonomy in curriculum, etc.) and provide actual better instruction to the students.
Conditions do drive excellent people out of teaching. One of my former student teachers quit teaching because he got a job in a high need area, but was expected to teach 5 different classes a day (several of them lab sciences), and was being paid so little that he had to live with his parents to be able to pay off his student loans. I hardly think that stuffing students in front of computers is a better solution than trying to recruit and retain excellent teachers.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:00:56 +0000

I benefit a great deal from reading this blog and I’m not a math teacher, but an instructional technology coordinator. Lisa’s points are well made about online instruction for the non-traditional student in our high schools.

One point that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, however, is the need for schools like Rocketship in school districts that cannot attract or retain the brightest and the best teachers. High quality teachers don’t want to be messiahs, they want to be teachers, to be respected, to earn a decent living, to have a life outside of the daily job. To teach in school districts where Rocketship is placing its charter schools, well, they aren’t places where the highly qualified want to live and work. So how else can we BEST give all children equity to a good quality education?