Stanford Math Course coming, anyone else interested?

[Bang!Zoom!]

https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Education/EDUC115N/How_to_Learn_Math/about

 

Free

 

Not so sure I'm hot about the common core issue, but the rest of it looks good.

[Halcyon]

ME! Thank you for pointing this out. Perfect.

[Eagle]

Thanks! I'm registered!

[Greenmama2]

Just signed up. Yay :)

[EKS]

I'm registered too. We should try to sit together on the first day!

[Upward Journey]

Thanks for reminding me!

[WishboneDawn]

Already registered. :)

[Terrilth]

Awesome! Thanks so much for posting this!

[morgan]

Thanks for sharing. I signed up too!

[mom31257]

I'm possibly interested, but my issue right now is having the time to actually do the course. Why do we have to sleep?

[Terrilth]

I'm possibly interested, but my issue right now is having the time to actually do the course. Why do we have to sleep?

 

hahaha! I was thinking the exact same thing!

[mathwonk]

"why do we have to sleep?"

 

As a grad student I became a vegetarian partly in order to spend less time sleeping and digesting heavy food. I also skipped lunch for the same reason, and to save money. I tried to sleep only 6-7 hours per night, and ran 2-4 miles each morning to......

 

sorry, these details are not interesting, but the moral is, we do a lot to provide for our families.

 

you guys inspire me anew.

 

And this is definitely not advice,.. I am laughing and crying when I recall this. Hang in there!

[Arcadia]

I'm possibly interested, but my issue right now is having the time to actually do the course. Why do we have to sleep?

 

 

Luckily you are not a chronic insomniac :) Suffering from having only 4hrs of sleep not by choice :p

[Halcyon]

I cant wait til this starts--should we start a Social Group or just post our thoughts here?

[Arcadia]

I cant wait til this starts--should we start a Social Group or just post our thoughts here?

Post your thoughts here. I'm too lazy to join social groups and might not have time for the class if homework is required.

[Lilaclady]

Thanks. I just signed up

[Matryoshka]

Okay, I signed up.

 

Is this asynchronus? I don't see any times mentioned.

[Tress]

:bigear:

 

I signed up, but I'm not really sure what I need to do.

Homework? Log-in at certain times (I'm outside the US)?

[mumto2]

I signed up too!

[tkdkidsmom]

Yes, I signed up a few days ago.

[drum1019]

Thank you I also registered for the course. Looking forward to it!

[Cheriwe]

I signed up. I am looking forward to it.

[Mukmuk]

Signed up. Thank you!!!

[taffnus]

I signed up too.

[SnegurochkaL]

I signed up few days ago. I am glad it will not start until later. I am trying to learn RobotC language myself while my daughter is taking her robotics classes this summer:)

[scbusf]

I'm late to the party, but I just signed up!!!!

[serendipitous journey]

"why do we have to sleep?"

 

As a grad student I became a vegetarian partly in order to spend less time sleeping and digesting heavy food. I also skipped lunch for the same reason, and to save money. I tried to sleep only 6-7 hours per night, and ran 2-4 miles each morning to......

 

sorry, these details are not interesting, but the moral is, we do a lot to provide for our families.

 

you guys inspire me anew.

 

And this is definitely not advice,.. I am laughing and crying when I recall this. Hang in there!

 

You are right, that is not advice!!! good grief!!!  oh my, I am sympathetic to your grad student self, but we just can't hint to homeschooling mamas that sleep deprivation and starvation will benefit their families. 

 

while I was in grad school I worked myself into a physical breakdown under a regime not unlike that one (I started to lose feeling on the left side of my body, in addition to being UNABLE to sleep for more than a 10-minute stretch and so on) ... it was years before I could sleep again, those were NOT effective or useful years. 

 

so I feel a certain obligation to note: please get enough sleep everybody, and be sure to get sufficient protein, and do not skip meals -- esp. if you are anywhere near menopause/perimenopause, when your whole system gets a little less graceful about being abused -- lots of veggies, enough good fats too, and a little space to Do Your Own Thing if at all possible ...

 

(to the OP -- I passed on this when you first posted b/c I do not need more math!!!  but all the cool kids are doing it, so I'm off to check it out ;)  )

 

ETA:  am registered ... whoo-hoo!

[ThoughtfulMama]

Thank you for posting this!  I have been lamenting my lack of skill as a math teacher recently.

 

[acurtis75]

I just signed up too. I have no idea if I have the time to get the assignments done but I'm going to give it a shot.

[Halcyon]

I am goi to listen this morning before getting started on my homeschool room cleanup for the day.

[trulycrabby]

I signed up; thank you very much for the link and info!

[Artichoke]

Thanks for posting this. Math has been a bit of a slog lately.

[Tress]

This is the first course I have ever taken, I had expected it to be only video lectures and had no idea there would be assignments. But I really like it!

[anabelneri]

This is the first course I have ever taken, I had expected it to be only video lectures and had no idea there would be assignments. But I really like it!

 

I've been worried about the assignments; I have a newborn and while I'm mostly sitting with him all day (and clearly I'm online  :001_smile: ) I'm worried that I won't be able to complete the assignments.  What kinds of things are you being asked to do?

 

Thank you!

[Eagle]

I finished chapter 1 (the introduction) and when I go to Progress it doesn't show anything yet. Maybe it is waiting for someone to peer review my answers to 1.3 and 1.6? Does anyone else's progress show up?

 

If you are on an ipad and are unable to read Lockhart's Lament, you can find a PDF of it here:

http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf

I found it really interesting and inspiring.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Ack, I passed this thread over because I thought it meant a Stanford course for kids, and I am determined not to add anything else to dd's plate!  But I am doing this class, too, and I think it's great.  I just posted about it on the General Board because I didn't realize there was a thread here.

 

I'm reading "A Mathematician's Lament" as we speak.  It's chilling.

[Lucy the Valiant]

I'm very late, but just signed up! Have a quieter couple of weeks ahead, so eager to dive in. :) Thanks for the heads-up!

[Chrysalis Academy]

"The enemies of a mistake-friendly culture are regular testing and an emphasis on speed."

 

So, what do you think?  

[Tiberia]

I like the class, too. THey're still working out the kinks in grading and such, but the content is very good and helpful to me. The Mindset information was very interesting to me. I'm trying to figure out how to change my math approach with dd9.

[onaclairadeluna]

I'm curious to know how others taking this course plan to change their homeschools. Also, are there others like me who have a "bad relationship with math"? I'd love to hear how this course is affecting you. 

So far I agree with most of what is being discussed in the course.

 

I liked the teaching examples where the teacher was discussing process and reasoning. In the example the teacher spent about 20 minutes discussing what 1 divided by 2/3 meant. I thought that was kind of cool so I asked my daughter what she thought. I was happy to hear that she does understand division by fractions. It's been awhile since we talked about it. I asked my daughter if I had taught her an algorithm for it. She said "no". I said "good, I'll tell you that later on". I mean she's 8 and she can basically reason out an answer.  I actually think it's better to reason things out for a bit longer before introducing algorithms but both of my kids are dyslexic and so it might be just me adjusting for their needs.

 

One thing that bothers me about the class it seems to be pushing for mixed ability classrooms. She talks about research that indicates that mixed ability classes are better for kids but I am skeptical. I want to actually see the research. Perhaps there are other factors that are involved. When I was young the lower classes had the worst teachers. What exactly is causing the difference in student success? It's hard to tell. She says what she thinks but doesn't give enough information for the students to analyse the problem themselves. I find this somewhat ironic and frustrating.

 

Also she uses ability grouping and achievement grouping interchangeably. So I can't tell what she is referring to when she talks about tracking. Ability grouping and achievement grouping are very different.

 

She seems to be somewhat dismissive of any sort of notion of ability. But if you are talking about growing ability, you have to have something to measure it by. I don't know if this is because I have 2e kids or what, but I am kind of protective of my ability to test and diagnose my children's strengths and weaknesses. I think their knowledge of this has been only helpful in their education and personal growth. I do not think that these labels are harmful in any way.

 

To be fair she did not ever come out and say that diagnosing lds is harmful but there seems to be a slippery slope from not wanting to label a students strengths and weakness to not wanting to talk about leaning disabilities.

 

I love all of the emphasis on mistake making. I think this is spot on. Encouraging children to feel positive about mistakes is extremely important for math learning. I didn't know that mistakes actually increase neural activity. That's kind of cool. I get kind of weirded out when Carol Dweck talks about "Growing your math brain." I get an image of Frankenstein. I do agree in spirit though.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I guess the thing I'm grappling with the most right at the moment is the idea that regular testing - summative assessment rather than formative assessment - is counter to the creation of a mistake-friendly culture and a growth mindset.  I get what she's saying, and why, and I don't disagree, but at the same time if my goal is to teach to mastery, how do I know when I've gotten there without doing summative assessments, on which I expect very few mistakes?  Do you guys get what i mean? I love the idea of valuing and celebrating mistakes and persistence on problem-solving tasks, but when I contemplate throwing out all tests until a final end-of-year assessment, I get kinda freaked out.  

 

The other thing that reading The Mathemetician's lament made me think was that I need a mathemetician to come teach my kids math - I have no business teaching them math, because I really don't see the deep, artistic underlying beauty of it.  Just like I have no business teaching them to play an instrument or create art.  But then I'm hosed, right? Because how many people do see math like a mathemetician?  None of the teachers my kids have had at the local elementary schools, that's for sure.  Where am I supposed to find such a person? I think I'm the best chance they've got, so I continue to struggle to turn myself into such a person, but it is a challenge.

 

I have to say, I do feel very shaken, that somehow what I've been doing and what I'm planning for next year isn't quite right, but I don't know exactly what I should be doing instead.  I need to spend a few hours on the MAP website I think, and see if that clarifies things at all.

[Bang!Zoom!]

We need Mathwonk.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I think it is highly possible to include summative assessments in a homeschooled child's math work without destroying the mistake-friendly environment. You're just checking that a certain concept has been mastered, so you can move on. There isn't the pressure to perform that comes with the public school environment, is there? And you certainly don't need to time those tests. 

 

Yeah, I think it's important to still do the summative assesments if the goal is teaching to mastery, for sure.  Maybe less often though? And instead of giving the paper back with xs through the errors and a score, give it back with errors highlighted, as an opportunity to "grow your math brain" by finding and correcting mistakes?

 

I'm also butting my head against this:  ok, this is all great, but there is still an amount of content our kids are expected to master, right?  I mean, when you say they have done Algebra 1 and gotten an A, that means something - it means they have covered a specific set of material and mastered it.  Right?  And how do you know if this is true if you aren't assessing in this way, at some level?  And unless you are already brilliant in math, how do you take the results of a formative assessment and say, "Ok, they clearly need more work on X concept so I'll do Y kind of open-ended problem?"

 

Yeah, I still see myself being dependent on someone else's great curriculum, here.  Thank goodness for AoPS and Zaccaro and stuff like that, huh?

[Woodland Mist Academy]

(Crosspost from the K-8 board thread.)

 

 

I am not sure what to think of The Mathematician's Lament. I thought it started well, but by the end I was disheartened and irritated.  I suspect that is partly because I disagreed with some of his thinking. For one, I disagree with his thoughts on poetry--perhaps even with his thoughts on creativity in general. Am I the only one?

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

 

(Crosspost from the K-8 board thread.)

 

 

I am not sure what to think of The Mathematician's Lament. I thought it started well, but by the end I was disheartened and irritated.  I suspect that is partly because I disagreed with some of his thinking. For one, I disagree with his thoughts on poetry--perhaps even with his thoughts on creativity in general. Am I the only one?

 

I think disheartened and irritated desribes about describes my mental state at the moment too.  I like and agree with a lot of the general points being made, but I don't know what I'm supposed to *do* with it yet, which I'm finding very frustrating.  Yeah, I know, praise effort not intelligence and all that stuff, but how do I teach *math* better??? :toetap05:

 

It's probably good that there will be a break - I've done all 4 session in the last two days and my head is spinning and I'm kind of cranky.  Should I throw out all my math plans for the year?  And what do I do instead?  I *liked* feeling like I was on the right track with math, darn it!!!   :glare:

[Woodland Mist Academy]

(Another cross post and some further thoughts.)

 

So far, we won't be making changes. AoPS offers and promotes mathematical creativity in spades. I see its effects trickling into everyday life. Just yesterday dd was contemplating a math concept and writing it out. It was not a new concept, but it was new to her. The fact that it came out of her dreamy reveries while she was avoiding a different school subject was a bit of a shock to her--a delightful moment, for sure.

 

Right now I'm thinking there is no reason to fix what's not broke. I'm not even sure I'll watch the rest. I eventually had to put in earbuds so my dd wouldn't constantly hear math and trauma in the same sentence. Then girls aren't as good at math.  I know the prof was making the opposite point, but honestly I disagree with that approach.  (Constant repetition of a thought process/view you are trying to change. Even I was starting to feel math was traumatic just from hearing her say it over and over.)

 

 

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

I know, right?  dd10 is dong great with math. We may or may not start AoPS this year, but we're doing lots of other interesting challenging problem solving stuff (although I am so drooling over Problemoids!)   dd7 definitely has math anxiety after her year with a really tough teacher in 1st grade ps, a lot of it having to do with timed testing which makes her stressed, but this is fixable (ask me how I know).

 

And I already know that the teaching of math in ps in this country sucks - that's why I'm homeschooling!!!  

 

So why am I feeling so cranky and inadequate?  

[Woodland Mist Academy]

 

 

So why am I feeling so cranky and inadequate?  

 

My guess is because you just listened to how traumatic math is and how girls can't do it! :tongue_smilie:

 

Seriously though, maybe you are not the target audience? It sounds like she was preaching to the choir, but for some reason the innocent choir suddenly felt the need to repent? :confused:  You certainly seem on the right track to me! But, what do I know? ;) 

 

I also want to stress that in no way do I think AoPS is the only math program stressing creativity etc. I am afraid it came across that way.

[Bang!Zoom!]

I sent Mathwonk a PM. I'll try to find his email addy at UofG.

[mathwonk]

I realize everyone has his/her own approach to math and to teaching, and what I suggest as mine is not meant as criticism of any other approach. Knowing what works with ones own child is a much better qualification than a math degree, in my opinion. But here are some thoughts that just bubbled out, even before I have had the pleasure of catching up in the thread.

 

I will need a while to catch up, but so far I agree with these sentiments from the Stanford link:

 

"1. Knocking down the myths about math.

Math is not about speed, memorization or learning lots of rules. There is no such thing as “math people†and non-math people. Girls are equally capable of the highest achievement. This session will include interviews with students."

 

 

In this vein, I want to encourage parents who feel clueless in math, that simply trying to convey curiosity,

and a willingness to tackle hard problems, is already much of the battle. The idea is that there is no finite amount of material to master, but a potentially lifelong sequence of questions to explore as far as they interest, or are needed.

 

Everyone is always going to hit the wall, regularly, with a math concept or problem they cannot get right away.

 

This is normal. There is no point at which one knows how to do it all. So we try to see the reason for each step, understand it, apply it, and hopefully enjoy it.

 

Another lesson I am getting from my epsilon kids, as I may have said, is listening to their ideas especially when they differ from the way I wanted them to proceed.

 

I.e. I am trying to remind myself there are more ways to skin a math problem than just the ones I learned, or the book has in it. We can try to adopt this attitude, independently of how much math we "know".

 

This happened to me last night as I was about to "correct" one of my scholars, until I realized he was right and I was wrong. Then I made sure I told him so.

 

I try to emulate a good youth soccer coach I saw once who frequently said "good idea" to a player whose attempt had just failed. I know some of you may wish you had more math familiarity, but more important I think is the caring dedication and love of education that is so evident here.

 

I will try to catch up and come back.