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Showing posts from December, 2015

Being Slow in Math is A Good Thing

"Speed ISN'T important in math. What is important is to deeply understand mathematical ideas and connections. Whether you are fast or slow isn't really relevant." - Laurent Schwartz, mathematician If you haven't seen the video by Jo Boaler and some of her Stanford students entitled "How to Learn Math: Four Key Messages", you definitely need to. Besides the four powerful messages (which I will list below), it has some great stories and quotes, one of which is the one I have above.  Jo Boaler has done powerful research and written some terrific books on mathematics and learning math (one of my favorites being "What's Math Got to Do with It?"  and the video about these four key messages in math is so interesting. Here are the four key messages about learning math (I highly recommend you watch the video to clarify and define each message a bit more): Everyone can learn math at high levels Believe in yourself (your beliefs about your ...

#HourofCode Sparking the Need for Computer Science Curriculum

It's been great to see all the posts on Twitter this week and the many articles focused on National Computer Science Education Week . The #HourofCode hashtag has been lighting up Twitter this week, which has been really exciting to see (and I have loved reading and sharing all the great links). Science and teaching students coding. All of course in response to this week being The idea behind #HourofCode is to expose as many people, especially students, to the basics of coding. The hope is by showing that anyone can learn coding, need for, interest in and involvement with computer science will increase. One of the many articles I read this week was one that suggested Computer Science courses should be considered math credit .  I think this is a great idea - it would provide a valuable math credit option for students, especially those not interested in the traditional Algebra II, pre-calculus, calculus path, which is usually the push for a majority of students. Often a path comple...