daijobu
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Posts posted by daijobu
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For a kid who is already studying python I would skip AP CS principles. It will be way too easy for him, won't add much to his programming experience, and I've heard weird things about earning credit for the exam, like you have to some place to upload your projects? I would skip it.
Yes, Java kinda sucks for students who love python, but learning Java after python will be pretty easy and he'll grab an easy 4-5 (probably a 5) on AP CS A exam, and it will be more meaningful.
TL;DR
Skip AP CS principles, and take AP CS A instead.
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On 12/27/2023 at 7:08 AM, shawthorne44 said:
Even experienced teachers get behind, and that is why I really don't have a problem with standardized testing. They may be teaching to the test, but at least they are teaching something more than their pet topics.
In Texas History, the teacher spent 3 months on the conquistadors, 3 weeks on just the Alamo, including a week of watching the old movie, and 3 DAYS on the Civil War.
OMG, same, and thank you for posting.
My high school also lacked an APUSH class, and the history department there decided that each teacher would focus on particular topics in US history, rather than the traditional survey course because, I don't know, depth? This despite the fact that we student had never had a US history class ever.
So in my particular class we were all in on the revolutionary war and the civil war. So much civil war. And nothing about the great depression, wwi and wwii, and any other war or any other era. I learned all that after college.
This is a reminder to me of another reason to defend the College Board.
And if I may segue a bit, I find myself harboring some amount of skepticism about some abandonment of survey courses in high school in favor of the more fun/interesting advanced classes. I hear about students who jump into classes like marine biology, and I suppose many of them have already taken regular biology, but at less privileged schools, I wonder if they are skipping regular boring prereq coursework. The goal is to keep students' interest in school generally, and to make it appear they are advanced when they are really getting a watered down version of an advanced course.
Is this a thing or is it just me?
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Yes, you need to sign up at the site. The sites sign up with the AMC to purchase exams in bundles of 10 or 12. I have no idea if you are "good to go." You'll need to confirm with the site where you registered. Ask if you need to provide ID, pencils, or anything else or if you need to arrive early. It's all up to them.
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I was recently interviewed on a podcast about the AMC and some of their recent controversies.
https://gettestbright.com/all-about-the-american-math-competition/
I also enjoy and recommend this podcast for information about testing, college admissions, and educational generally.
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5 hours ago, Roadrunner said:
I am curious how people view IB classes and exams versus AP and why there is no hatred for IB in a similar fashion. Is it because it isn’t widespread? Or something IB schools are doing that’s fundamentally different? I would have loved an IB experience for my non stem kid.
I'm not that familiar with IB, but my sense was that going to an IB school is like taking an AP class in every single subject. I don't want that for my kids. I want to reserve AP for their interests and take easier classes that don't interest them.
Also, I heard that IB really isn't available to homeschoolers, so my investigation ended there.
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3 hours ago, SKL said:
...they asked each girl what they are most proud of. Nearly every girl said she was most proud of her GPA. When I was a kid, I wouldn't even think of mentioning my GPA unless I absolutely had to ....
My take is that for me personally this would have been a highly awkward question to answer, bordering on forcing me to be braggy. If one or two or three girls answered GPA and earned a positive response, I would have answered the same just to not call attention to myself and get it over with.
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2 hours ago, EKS said:
The reason--or a reason--that kids from lower SES families might have trouble with math is that instruction is frequently discovery based (and, thus, extremely inefficient)
I had never heard of discovery based instruction before joining this board and reading a post from a parent complaining about it. I thought it was a straw man argument for homeschooling. I mean, what teacher doesn't believe in teaching? Turns out, I was wrong, and discovery is very much real. Not only is it inefficient, but when you ask students to discover things on their own, they often get it wrong the first time. And it turns out it's much, much more difficult to correct a wrong preconceived notion than it is to instruct the correct way from the start. Students often get wrong ideas because they are instructed to discover things with a fellow student who is equally a novice. It's the blind leading the blind.
This prompted my deep dive into learning about current teaching practices (since my kids were always homeschooled, I had no idea what was going on). I was reading books about teaching, listening to podcasts by current teachers, reading their blogs. It's truly crazy out there. A favorite hate-listen of mine is the Math Teacher's Lounge podcast where the 2 hosts discuss their math "trauma," and how to avoid rote memorization of math facts.
3 hours ago, EKS said:This infuriates me. I prefer a physical textbook. And I am not alone in this. It lives on my desk. I can flip back and forth between sections or chapters. I can browse easily.
Me, too.
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1 hour ago, Paige said:
And my prof wouldn't let me give failing grades or incompletes. I doubt things have gotten better. The prof really wanted a high pass rate, high teacher reviews, and few complaints to the dean. She was actually a fabulous teacher and cared about her students, but she also cared about her job.
Your professor was smart. Better to wait until you have tenure before you rock the boat. Here's a professor who wasn't so smart and indeed did lose her job over grading standards.
"When I accepted a tenure-track position in the economics department of Spelman College in the spring of 2021, handing out bogus grades was the last thing on my mind."
"But what I found at Spelman was even more troubling: even after receiving the “normal” grade inflation, students demanded yet higher grades—and revolted when I wouldn’t go along. "
"Their basic argument was that since virtually the entire class had performed poorly on the midterm, it had to be my fault, and therefore, I needed to make changes that aligned with their wishes and input. Boiled down, they had two demands: make the class easier, and promise that they would all get passing grades. "
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Yeah, I don't get all the hate for the College Board. It strikes me as a reflexive anti-test sentiment that's so popular these days. In the absence of any sort of standards for what it means to study math or history or English or science in high school, the College Board does an exceptional job of filling this vacuum.
2 hours ago, Farrar said:Pass rates on these exams haven't budged. This is the reality. These kids didn't learn.
Is this the fault of the College Board?
2 hours ago, Farrar said:The logic that therefore the AP courses are creating better education is flawed. The College Board is not improving your kid's education.
The College Board can't do everything, and they certainly can't control what happens in the classrooms, but they do bend over backward to provide supporting materials to teachers. What they do execeptionally well is set a standard and measure students and teachers and schools against this standard.
If not for the College Board, we would have no idea what was happening to our students. Don't shoot the messenger. And don't hate on testing.
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I used the US edition of Singapore Math, and we counted satay sticks, weighed boxes of mangoes, papayas and durians, and measured how far to travel to get to Sentosa Island. I didn't use the original edition, but I guessed the difference was the inclusion of US measurements, in addition to metric.
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Hi @Condessa: I'm sorry you are going through this. I suspect students overseas have easier access to the AMC contests than students in the US.
My recommendation is to contact Nicole Goberdhan, who is in charge of the AMC, or maybe one of the assistants listed on the website. Sadly, this so-called "Staff Directory" I linked does not contain any actual contact information, no emails, no phone numbers. This does not bode well for the MAA as a non-profit organization based on equity and openness to the students it serves. Nonetheless, you can call the main number ask to be connected the old fashioned way.
I did find myself attending an event and asked Ms. Goberdhan about access to the AMC and she noted a program she wants to start where the MAA recruits members at various universities to help with proctoring.
If you are able to speak with someone, I would mention your geographic location, what you have done already to locate an AMC site, and any universities or colleges or cc's that might be near you. I'm not well-versed in political pressure, but if you happen to live in an area that is low-income or has a high population of URMs, you can then make the case for an equity issue to her.
It's just so frustrating to me that a few years ago, a homeschooler with some organizational skills and access to a local library could make the AMC happen in their community, but that option is now banned. Please keep me informed of your progress; as you can see this is a little personal for me, lol.
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Oh I was wrong. I think chapter 7 is when it gets real, lol. Watch out for chapter 7.
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6 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:
Week 5 is due on the 20th. It has started to get real.
What chapter in the book is this?
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I often wondered why folks on this board made such a big deal about this. The College Board does not operate some kind of police force that reads through people's transcripts searching for AP course listings that aren't formally approved. Does anyone (including admissions committees) care that you passed some meaningless audit? Do 20 year old admissions readers even know that such an audit exists?
Completing the audit is useful because they have a clunky system to access their Question Bank and create nifty worksheets. It isn't the best UI, but it mostly works, and I use it to create PDFs of calculus practice problems for my students.
The agents you spoke with are probably misinformed, but I doubt anyone at CB really cares anyway. ETS just laid off a bunch of people, and the College Board had layoffs a couple of years ago.
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@lewelma You mentioned your son's math colleague from Wellington with whom he studied. Was this person also homeschooled? Did he stay local for college and post-college or did he also leave NZ?
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Drop the class and hire someone to evaluate your son's writing.
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19 hours ago, EKS said:
Here is how I approach group projects. I assume that I will do all of the work and that I will share the credit with the group members regardless of how much or little they do.
I totally agree with EKS on this. The only I would have handled this differently is I would have been loathe to contact the professor or draw attention to myself in a negative way. MAYBE one contact just to get a feel for the personality of the professor. If the vibe from the prof is negative, then keep your head down, turn in the project and don't make waves. I think your DS has good instincts on this.
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39 minutes ago, shawthorne44 said:
I told her about many in the class having already had Geometry at a middle school and she said blithely, "I've had it too," referring to the BA stuff. She also already knew about the Whisper thing. Kids these days know so much. According to her the Whisper function is when you might be asking a dumb question.
I'll try not to take that personally. 😉
Once I showed up late for class and was working through the transcript well behind everyone else. I had a question, so I used Whisper to ask something along the lines of, "I'm still catching up with the class, but could you explain why..." And I received a helpful reply and I was able to catch up, because class moves so slowly anyway.
The nice thing about Whisper is you can ask a slightly OT question without worrying about it distracting other students.
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I was also going to suggest a passport. Can't you make an appointment at the DMV and show up at the expected time?
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I'm glad @Roadrunner mentioned the ugly campus, because I have to agree, though some of the academic buildings are nicer and newer.
I think it's a great school, and nice to be a small techie campus. One caution if you have a future engineering major. They offer a major in Engineering, but that always seemed odd to me. Electrical engineering to my mind is a very different field from mechanical engineering and so on. I'm not even sure what plain vanilla "engineering" actually means.
But it can't be that bad because a google search reveals is to be the most popular major on campus, so what do I know?
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I'm not sure if you are asking for feedback, but I think you are on the right track.
It's a good habit to work ahead in class before lecture. You should also know that many students are taking an AoPS class for example, after they've already studied geometry in their B&M school, so it's good for your student to not be discouraged.
Sometimes there's a fair bit of a lag in the online lectures as the TAs are answering questions. I often wondered if my computer was frozen, but it's just a slow-moving class.
Encourage your student to take advantage of the "whisper" option, even if it's off topic. Other students in the classroom won't see it, and you can use that opportunity to ask questions of the TAs in real time.
I also schooled year round and loved it. We took breaks on our own schedule (same as you, for camps or traveling). If we finished algebra on Tuesday, we continued with geometry on Wednesday, eg. You never know if you'll need the extra time later on due to unforeseen schedule hiccups.
You're off to a great start!
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6 hours ago, Shelly in VA said:
I have now shown him a proof, and gone through it with him. When I asked what, exactly, he is stuck on, he says that he still feels like he doesn't understand why anyone thought to do this in the first place. I'm not sure what he means by that. I can't decide if this is teen debating or a genuine question from him!
It's a good question, and it's the reason we remember the greats like Newton and Leibniz. I'm impressed people were able to come with a formal way to describe concepts such as "infinitely large" and "infinitely small" that actually result in correct usable solutions to actual problems.
I certainly couldn't tell you how these great minds work!
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On 9/18/2023 at 12:23 PM, Shelly in VA said:
Is there anything concise that could possibly provide that for him? I thought about the Art of Problem Solving Calculus book , but I'm actually looking for something more concise.
I'm not sure what part of AoPS is not concise.
I've pasted below the proof for the derivative of a polynomial. It's all of 4 lines.
The AoPS calculus textbook 320 pages, much slimmer than any other standard calculus text.
(Let me know if you can't view the image below.)
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I've also heard anedotally that some PhD programs place larger requirements on their PhD students than others. I was chatting with a guy whose wife was earning a PhD and she chose her institution over some Ivy because the Ivy expected more hours to be spent as a TA, handling office hours, grading exams, etc. At her generally less prestigious institution, she can spend more time on her research, and graduate earlier with more papers.
I'm curious if this is generally true, or an outlier?
Article on AP--Taxpayers paid at least $90 million for AP tests that many students failed.
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I've considered this myself, but I don't know if these boring survey-type courses are truly skippable, in favor of fun courses, including history. I think it's helpful to have a scaffold on which to hang more interesting material. If you want to read a fun history like Master Slave Husband Wife, it really helps to have at least been introduced to the Civil War generally.