Right. Prep is "prepared to take math that counts towards your degree", not "prepared to enter any standard major and graduate in 4 years". Argh. And then we talk about the lack of diversity in STEM. Gee, maybe your failure to provide an education that would, oh, I don't know, allow those without family resources to be prepared for a STEM major has something to do with that?

No. The "repulsive" part is that it's not guaranteed to all the children. I am absolutely 100% in favor of special needs children getting an appropriate and free education.

Frankly, I don't see how a spreadsheet falls under "math" anyway, although I would say that doing an activity (shopkeeping is a great one) that requires a child to do a spreadsheet is a good skill to have. But it's more of a life/computer skill than math. I missed that part of your original post (it was late ok? :) ) but the MM topical set would definitely help with the geometry/probability stuff you're looking for; if you already have it, I think that'd be perfect.

Today I learned something new, I guess. I also learned something kinda repulsive. (not pointing at you btw, at the law).

A lot of school districts have chosen to use "common core" as a hogwash excuse for not offering any advanced classes whatsoever. Her district is particularly egregious in the matter; for example (she has said) classes after algebra 2 are no longer taught at the high school, but students must dual enroll. Students who can't afford to DE take study hall. I have yet to figure out how that satisfies the "free and appropriate" part of public education, but families who lack the resources to DE also tend to lack the resources to file a lawsuit.

This is one of my absolute biggest pet peeves. I get kids in my college algebra and pre-calculus classes (sometimes even intermediate algebra) placed there by ACT score, who have a terrible attitude about it because "I took AP calc in high school, why are you wasting my time with baby math" and then proceed to fail because, well, they didn't actually understand the "baby math" that they were complaining about. And even if they get into calc, they tend to fail because they think they know calculus. In actuality, all they learned was how to take derivatives of polynomials with the power rule and use L'Hospital's rule, or at least that's all that they remember. :rant:

I really, really wish more colleges would do like Chapel Hill -- say "ok, this is what we expect -- this is enough -- no bonuses for more". I remember reading an article -- the guy was at a good school, but I forgot where -- but he said basically, people with a SAT M+V 1400 were pretty much going to do fine, 1100-1400 was iffy, below that was probably not going to be successful -- and continued by saying "We should just say that you need 1400, or 1100 if you can convince us there were extenuating circumstances, and after that we take the score off your application and evaluate you without it."

Why not get the Math Mammoth topical set? You could easily print worksheets from whatever topics you wanted as a supplement to what you're doing, it's definitely open and go -- the first website I looked at (currclick) the grades 4-7 bundle was $75 and the complete bundle was $120, which isn't a huge amount for several years worth of supplementation.

Oh gosh no. Don't do all of those. It's not like a homeschool curriculum that's designed for you to do every problem. Every 2-4 depending on how much practice is needed. If there are just a few word problems at the end, do all of those though.

She says she gets them correct? Is she grading them or are you? Or is she supposed to do them and then watch the videos? Are you sure she's not just following along through the solutions going "yeah, yeah, I understand, I get it"? Because there is a huge difference between understanding when you're watching someone else do problems or when someone is prompting you, and understanding enough to do it on your own. A lot of my college students still don't get this, so it's absolutely normal and understandable for a pre-teen to have that issue.

Golly, I would be so thrilled if a high school student wanted to go beyond what I was able to teach at the college and I was actually able to do a class in something advanced. :/

How much math did you learn and how much math do you remember? As far as "Statistics for dummies", check this out: https://www.amazon.com/The-Manga-Guide-to-Statistics/dp/1593271891/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8 The reviews are good -- you can see a fair amount of content with "look inside" -- and even if it is not what you need, it is under $10 with shipping. Cartoon guide to statistics is good too -- but of the people who reviewed both, they preferred this one.

One of my friends is a native speaker of Japanese and fluent in English. She does do a lot of translation in-person but she also does a lot online. Data analysis is huge right now and if she's strong there, it's a great choice; the languages can only help, as it will open a lot of possibilities for her involving collaboration with people in other countries. She'd also be an amazing research collaborator for someone involved in globalization as data sets are often international. Another place that might really appreciate her talents would be the department of defense -- someone who's strong in math, writing, and languages would definitely be a big hit. But honestly, at her age I'd just keep studying the languages since she finds so much pleasure in it, and keep doing a broad academic background -- don't neglect the social sciences, I really think that someplace like economics/geography would love her as well, and it might appeal to her -- there's a lot of mathematics/networks in the research of globalization. MIT's OCW has some really interesting courses in that area, though she probably hasn't satisfied the mathematics prerequisites there.

Heigh Ho has some good suggestions. With problems, he needs to just start writing stuff instead of freezing and worrying about whether it's right or not. For fractions, it might be worth it (if he has a phone) to convince him to put a fraction app on it -- gamified, or give him some minor reward -- he really needs to just keep practicing.

It depends on a combination of the cost, the nutrition, how fast it'll spoil, and just how nasty it is. If it was bought as a treat and has little nutritional value anyway, it goes in the bin immediately. If it was expensive or was supposed to supplement my diet, I'll try quite hard to repurpose it. But sometimes this ends with coming up for an idea about repurposing it and then it sits in the closet.

Some basics and how to adapt them rather than paint-by-number recipes. For example: Pate a choux and several different shapes/fillings, some sweet, some savory. Edit: You may very well have some that have never done anything more than Easy Mac before -- I'd plan some "getting up to speed" at the beginning -- some more forgiving things that are still fun -- so that you can pick out who needs extra help and who is ready to fly.

I am genuinely curious now about these tests. Do you know how any of the other students are doing in the class?

Off to the side, or for a nasty problem, on another sheet of paper, you should label every single variable with what it signifies, in words. Then, when you find out the numerical value, put it by the variable. e.g. Q = midpoint of AB. Then when you get tangled up with letters, you can look back to your reference sheet, and you don't have to scan through your paper looking for the numbers.

Yes. It also allows the universities to recruit and retain people who are talented at and interested in teaching but not necessarily interested in doing research or scholarly development outside the realms of curriculum and instruction, rather than relying on whoever's local and hasn't found a full-time gig, which is a benefit to both the university/department (not ending up calling local graduate schools on the day classes start trying to find someone who can do calculus 1 at 9am because your adjunct found a full-time position and understandably bailed) and the students (having instruction from someone who specializes in teaching the lower-division classes and has researched the pedagogy there, rather than begrudgingly putting as little time as possible so as not to detract from their research).

Yes. I was just writing a teaching statement for job applications and was discussing strategies I use for moving students towards a conceptual basis when they have been taught and are only comfortable with an algorithmic basis. Dividing by zero is a perfect example. They learn that "Anything divided by zero is zero" and what sticks in their head is "0 is BAD in division problems". So when they see "0/5", they immediately go to "undefined!" Another place where it's very obvious is in absolute value. They've learned, on an algorithmic level, that |x| = c has the solutions +/- c. So when we ask for solutions of |x| = -4, instead of saying "But the absolute value can't be negative! There can't be solutions!" they answer -/+ 4. tl;dr OP's dd is going to be a pleasure to teach in college ;)

What I came in to type. There's also the everlasting hope that next year will be the year.

I have hit other. It is more than 6 cups worth, I believe, but it is in the form of either diet soda (if I'm stressed beyond belief) or caffeine pills (if I'm not). Caffeineinformer.com is useful if you want to know how much you've consumed.

Honestly I think that since you already HAVE the AOPS book, I'd start it and see what he thought about it/how he did with it. I've also heard good things about Jousting Armadillos as far as engaging -- it wouldn't go as far as AOPS (it's only algebra) but it might be a good bridge. The student book is $25 and the teacher answer book/tests are $35.

I wouldn't say a thing about the weight until she did. Not because I'd like to see her doing it, but because commenting on it is very unlikely to alter her behavior, but far more likely to make her feel upset/angry and less likely for her to actually ask me for help. But I do wonder if it's the symptom of another problem. I'd be trying to set up situations where we could be alone so that she'd feel free to talk about what was on her mind.