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Confessions of an Average AP Scholar
It’s now officially a decade since I graduated from high school as a College Board Certified AP Scholar (their term, not mine) I took seven AP courses and passed all of their exams with a 4 or better (ironically except Physics, probably because I registered for the wrong version of the test) My ability to [...]
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Struggle Bus
Once a student emailed me with the subject line, “Help, I’m on the struggle bus…” I laughed so hard that bacon came out my nose. I then drew a struggle bus. A student then scanned it into Illustrator and put our class motto on it. T-shirts were then made and worn regularly.
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What’s Crazy?
You administer a valid summative exam. It had every standard on it with an even keel attempt at assessing the student’s ability. The student gets a 18/28. The student is immediately driven into the depths of despair over their ‘D’ You then tell them the test has been curved down to 22-points. The student is [...]
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Bacon-Wrapped Lessons Workshops: The Saltiest PD Ever
My boss over at IowaTransformED and I created Bacon-Wrapped Lessons in order to meet PD needs that weren’t getting met. That’s in fact my entire job over there, and what a sweet job it is: Find problems that Iowa’s teachers are dealing with; fix them. Sooooo, we’d like to invite any of you who are [...]
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Help! I’ve Taught Traditional and I Can’t Get PBL!
This post was written by a the unflappable Leif Segen, who teaches in central Iowa. I try to be honest with my students. When I hear their lamentations of the meaninglessness of their experiences in school, I admit the parallels between school and prison. They’re quick to say, “You get it!” That said, I’m in [...]
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How I Teach Calculus: A Comedy – Man v. Food
I have to get this down before I forget. A discussion of what it means to be exponential (which colloquially is beyond misunderstood and bordering on abused) led to a discussion of what it means to grow because you’re growing. Does gravity work this way? They asked. Thankfully not. You don’t fall faster because you’re [...]
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Thanks, The Atlantic?
So, The Atlantic posted this: That chart is probably obvious to most of us, especially those of us in the Math Ed Twitterblogopinosphere. But here’s where things gets stupid: These numbers alone aren’t an open and shut case against teaching complex math to most high school students. But they do suggest that what we teach [...]
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WTF FIJI WATER?
You know something is crazypants when you get a terrible feeling in your gut just looking at the marketing as you stand in a CVS. You know something is really really crazywaders when you go to their website and feel lulled by their corporate concern for the every man. FIJI Water is just such a [...]
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Processing 3D Camera-Vector Sandbox
Giving students a sandbox of code and having them play around is really fun for me. They get to see some basics in action (the stuff I did), and I get to see what crazy ideas they come up with. Welcome to Explore Planets. The code allows you to fly the camera around a world [...]
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Venn Curriculum
Just a few quick thoughts: As 4-year schools push remediation courses (like whatever-the-bananagrams “college algebra” means) down onto online “institutions” and community colleges, do they realize they’re asking for a disruption of their other course offerings as well? As more colleges, with their attractive open schedules and other freedoms, offer these remediation courses, high schoolers [...]