World Series Game 7 - Still All About Math

Well...it was a wild and crazy night in St. Louis last night. I was right down the street from the stadium and the streets were packed for hours with screaming, dancing, high-fiving Cardinals fans. Insane!! But, hard not to get caught up in the enthusiasm. My palms hurt from all the high-fiving and my throat is sore and I can't talk...

Anyway, with all the excitement I totally forgot to post yesterday...what I was going to post from the math conference was how the baseball fever had permeated the booth. St. Louis Cardinals shirts, signs, feather boas were all over the exhibit hall. In our booth, we had a Sketchpad tessellation done by a college student that was the cardinal, and using TinkerPlots, we did a quick statistical analysis of the two teams. They were so close in comparisons that predicting the winner was hard....obviously home team advantage and Freese made a difference! Just wanted to share a picture of the team comparison.

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Implementation Dip - It's Not Just Test Scores, It's Any Change

I read this article yesterday by Andrew Ujifusa entitled New Tests Put States on Hot Seat as Scores Plunge . Basically, states that have implemented new standardized tests to address revised academic standards, such as the Common Core State Standards, have seen a drop in student scores, so panic has ensued. What I want to know is: has no one ever heard about the implementation dip? Whenever you try to implement something new, there is going to be a period of adjustment, scores will go down if we are talking tests, classroom behaviors will change and achievement will go down if new teaching strategies are being implemented - in short, any time you try something new, it is NOT going to go exactly as planned! Mistakes will happen, things will be bad before they get better - it's part of the whole change process. Which is why we need to be implementing changes slowly, early, and over time so that things that go wrong can be adjusted. Image from images.google.com What ...

Social Media's Impact on Personal Life - Personal Reflections

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Lecture, Direct-Instruction or Talk - There's the Confusion!

In yesterday's weekly #edchat Twitter collaboration the discussion focused on the flipped classroom, where, naturally, there was quite a bit of debate around the idea of video lectures. What became apparent was the many different interpretations of the term 'lecture'. This came to the forefront for me when I offered up the idea of TED Talks as one option for learning rather than a teacher's video lecture, and someone said "TED talks are just lectures, so how is that better?" This stumped me as I have never thought of a TED talk as a lecture, which is funny, because now, forced to think about it, I guess they could be construed as lectures, depending on your definition. Which of course has led me to this post! Obviously, my perception of a lecture is not the same as others. What is MY definition of a lecture? Perhaps it's my many years of being both a student and a teacher, but for me a 'lecture' has rather negative connotations, as I envisio...

Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

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