MrSmith
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Posts posted by MrSmith
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Actually I disagree with this statement ^
I have not looked at the actual NC state program but in general C.S. majors have to have very good logical reasoning skills - usually they take a little different math than the Engineering majors such as Discrete Math
the big assumption is will your student be able to take the courses he needs the in his first year to pursue CS - otherwise it may take longer
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My background
undergrad - BS Math (mostly applied) with minor in CS (and an unofficial minor in EE)
MS in Computer Eng
I agree with Mark. CS is more logic than math. It's just that math is used to teach that logic.
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I guess the reason I take exception to this to some extent is that it's purely notational and - as pointed out above - there are textbooks that disagree and different countries that disagree. And they can, because we could have decided that it read the other way. It's like periods vs. commas in American vs. British math. Or where to put the commas in American vs. Indian math. It's nothing to do with the math itself. It's just about the notation.
I'm not saying it's not something to teach. But I think it's radically different from a new reader reading the words all wrong, which does change their meaning. I would worry that if we strongly emphasize the idea of "wrong" with a student who is reading 2 x 3 as three groups of two or showing their array on it's "side", we obscure the much more important idea that multiplication is commutative.
[i lied.]
I think we can all agree that 2x3=3x2 (in the set of reals), but if I bring two sets of 3 balls to juggle with that third kid will be watching the other two.
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It's better if you start earlier. A little at a time now, before CWP3/4 hits you like a ton of bricks.
If you wait the problems will be much harder and he will not have the requisite technical skills to explain the work.
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I think AAA just contracts with local companies who then come to provide service. So where you have the incident and the quality of the services provided is not really a reflection on AAA so much as it is on the local firms.
AAA itself is only for in person services (meaning you go to an actual AAA office).
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I don't know how best to manage this. My son is finishing 6th grade. My aim is to increase his independence, because our future as homeschoolers is probably not longer than the coming year or two at the most. So I would *like* to be able to have him complete two pages of math without taking a billion years OR getting bogged down with some careless error that ends up screwing up the entire problem. If I'm sitting close at hand, I can usually see he is barking up the wrong tree before he gets all screwed up. BUT! I am trying to NOT do that so much!
We use MUS. I love that curriculum and have no issue with it and no interest in trying a different curriculum. He understands the concepts of math just fine. He is bright and catches on quickly, but he is also easily distracted and his focus wanes, especially on more tedious multi-step problem. That's when he makes some mistake in subtraction, say, that causes the whole problem to skew.
Any ideas?
I gave my kid these guidelines:
Read the question carefully.
Check your work after each step.
Answer the question asked (not some other question you wish they had asked).
Since we started doing this the careless error rate has really dropped.
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This problem is from Critical Thinking Book 2 (the Critical Thinking Company)
My daughter needs to figure out if this is a tautology by proving if the argument is valid.
[P->(Q->R)]->[(P->Q)->R]
She is working independantly through this book so I have NO IDEA what all of this means.
Thanks in advance!
Using the logical implication truth table from Wikipedia as a guide, consider the following:
Suppose P, Q, and R are all FALSE. Then:
Since P is FALSE, [P->(Q->R)] is TRUE, regardless of what value is assigned to (Q->R)
(P->Q) = TRUE, therefore (P->Q) -> R is FALSE (since R is assumed FALSE)
Thus, [P->(Q->R)]->[(P->Q)->R] is equivalent to [TRUE -> FALSE] which is FALSE.
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IEW has been great for grammar and writing, but I want to supplement with a) more literature b) reading comprehension. DS has been taking the practice SAT and he has been stuck in the 600s for a while now. I am not sure how to diagnose his weakness or what to supplement it to help him improve. Suggestions by others who have gone through this?
I am not looking for princeton review type help. My goal is not to teach the test to him - I think if I give him the right skills through coursework, his score will improve naturally. Am I wrong? Should I think of this like the Math section where it really is a learned test taking skill?
The practice tests from CB break down the questions into various topics. Have you been able to use that for more directed instruction?
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Thanks!
Flipping through I found an error on 7-7. Maybe look it over thoroughly first.
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I started a 529 when my kid was born. Since that time the value has doubled. But that's probably largely because we are in the middle of one of the longest bull markets in history.
Since a 529 is basically a mutual fund that is tax free for educational use, if your portfolio can earn more after tax return per annum then it is suboptimal. Without a lot of luck or sophistication it is not likely that any retail investor will consistently beat the general market return.
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FYI the AOPS placement tests are really easy but the program is not. If it's a good fit it will be very solid and worthwhile.
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Btw, Stan does say that there are exceptions to his age/hair cut-offs - and I have nowhere near enough experience teaching math to know what percentage of kids is or is not ready for Fractions/Algebra before 10/hair... and I suspect Stan would agree that your daughter is exceptional:
While most students are not mentally mature enough to handle the Life of Fred Fractions book until they are old enough for 5th grade, there are exceptions to every rule. If your child is ready, do not feel you must hold them back.
There is an old saying that you shouldn't start algebra until you have hair under your arms. A child's brain needs to develop physiologically before tackling the abstractions that algebra contains. With this in mind, a student should not probably start Beginning Algebra until around 7th or 8th Grade. Since the five books in the Pre-Algebra series are designed to take approximately 1 to 1 1/2 school years to complete, a 5th or 6th grader could go through the five books a second time to make sure the concepts are thoroughly understood. (If you are really good with math and ready to move on, don't hold back!)
I read this somewhere: "Old sayings are things old people say to make sure that only old people get to say those things."
While I'm sure the author means well, his addendum sounds like a cop-out; but maybe my brain needs to develop physiologically before I can understand his line of seasoned reasoning.
After many years of watching my kid conceptually understand math he shouldn't be old enough to comprehend, I have a very low tolerance for this stuff.
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Of course it's on the west side. Becausing putting it inland would just be too easy :laugh: Seriously though, this is really great! Can't wait to see the schedule.
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It's also going to depend on how long you're willing to take. Like, if you're planning on scheduling both books over a couple of years, that's probably a great idea, and a lot of people have done geo/alg 2 with various curricula. If you're planning on getting both done within a year, that could be unreasonably ambitious.
I showed this to my son and he said "hmm, for some reason 'unreasonably ambitious' sounds suspciously like 'crazy'." :laugh:
Although adding another book wouldn't be overload, we've decided I only get to torture him one book at a time. Maybe when he's halfway through Geo I can try again...
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My son picks up math pretty quick and he's done their PreA and and wrapping up the Intro A soon. He says he wants more algebra but I want to get some geo in. Would we be crazy to try it? If not, how might we go about it?
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I am a native Chinese speaker.
My DD is 5 years old. I use "si wu kuai du" (total 7 books) to teach her. You can buy the whole set from iPad App store.
For your older child, I'd suggest use HSK Standard Course books (total 6 levels). You can see the sample book here and get it via eBay. My DS (12-year-old) currently uses the level 3 book. The most difficult part is the Chinese Pinyin (phonics).
Is there a similar set of texts using traditional characters?
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We used the Standards Edition because that's what they had. I'm not a big on "teaching to the test" so I'll use anything that I feel teaches the material properly (properly being relative and subjective).
As for manipulatives, I wanted to keep everything abstract so we just used anything lying around at the time. The idea is not to get hung up on any one thing representing a given value (i.e., 10 has to be this long or this color or whatever).
At 1st and 2nd I made sure that the ideas are imposed on the objects rather than the objects enforce the idea. That way you will know immediately if they don't understand.
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CWP is painful at L4 and higher. Lower levels aren't that bad, but still harder than average. They are not a teaching series (it's got maybe 2 examples per section). For more explicit teaching of problem solving strategies the process skills books are fantastic.
That said, they are great for what they are designed to do: stretch the student and force them to apply concepts and see solutions as a whole rather than as a series of random steps.
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There's a difference between grammatically clear and actually making sense. I think it is reasonable to require that a 5th grade student use complete sentences to describe something to another person.
Whether the student can explain the math (or whatever subject) in a clear way has more to do with maturity and practice than understanding. That is, one cannot tell if the student understands or not if they fail to explain orally. My kid can't narrate a proof to save his life but his written ones are quite good.
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The online books are tied to your account, so you can use them with as many children as you want. Obviously you will need internet access to read them (no download option), but if you have a portable device it is very convenient.
As for tests, why do you feel they are needed (unless for some official record keeping)? As long as you are participating actively in his usage of the book, I think you would have a good idea whether or not he is understanding the material. Generally, AOPS isn't the kind of book he can skate through without understanding the material.
FYI, the Pre-Algebra book is somewhat front-loaded, meaning the earlier chapters take a lot longer than the later ones.
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A couple of years ago I was looking into KA as independent enrichment for summer. Then I saw this and decided I could not risk it.
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We used the CA Standards edition 1-6; CC Edition wasn't out yet. FYI I feel the SM2 is a seminal level that should be completely mastered for best chance of success at higher levels. It will seem like "not that big a deal" but ask me how I know :D
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Binary is also fun. I'm turning 100000 in a couple of months!
ETA: I think the importance of binary for computer programming is overrated. Yes, obviously computers use binary to do everything, but most people program use such high-level languages that what the computer exactly does stays hidden pretty well. Not saying it's ideal, but you probably could program quite a bit without understanding binary...
To a large extent this is true. Much in the same way that one can perform lots of arithmetic without understanding any of it.
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I never learned binary math and am thoroughly confused on how to explain it to DS who is just as confused as I am, lol.
Any easier explanations out there? Is it something we even need to worry about?
I have not read the BA 4A explanation. Binary number system is certainly interesting (Aliens with 2 fingers need to count, too!), but is generally not needed.
Binary is no different from decimal: It all comes down to place value. The trouble is we spend 10 years using [0,9] but only a couple of weeks using [0,1].
Consider the following:
Base 10 (for reference)
42 = (4 * 10^1) + (2 * 10^0), where a^b is taken to mean 'raise a to the power b'. It is further assumed that all powers of 10 larger than 0 have coefficient 0 (that is, 0 * 10^2 + 0 * 10^3 and so on).
Base 2
42 = 101010 = (1 * 2^5) + (0 * 2^4) + (1 * 2^3) + (0 * 2^2) + (1 * 2^1) + (0 * 2^0)
As with decimal, all powers of 2 larger than 6 are assumed to have coefficient 0.
Conversion from Binary to Decimal is a direct application of base-2 place value (as above).
Conversion from Decimal to Binary can be conceptualized like this: Divide the number by 2 and keep track of the quotients and remainders separately. The bit (binary digit) is 0 if the dividend is even, and the bit is 1 if the dividend is odd.
The thing to remember is the first division you perform results in the lowest valued bit (2^0), and advances to higher value ('to the left') for each subsequent division. This is a departure from decimal division, where the initial operation results in the largest value in the quotient.
To convert 42 into binary:
42 / 2 = 21 remainder 0
21 / 2 = 10 remainder 1
10 / 2 = 5 remainder 0
5 / 2 = 2 remainder 1
2 / 2 = 1 remainder 0
1 / 2 = 0 remainder 1
[stop since dividend is 0]
42 decimal = 101010 binary
There are other methods but I always liked this one to start.
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OMG, we got an AOPS Academy!!!!!
in Accelerated Learner Board
Posted
They have a foundation, although it doesn't look like it supports the academy.