tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post8323533034584814473..comments2024-03-22T01:06:23.845-07:00Comments on Confessions of a College Professor: Common Core and FractionsDoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-89224359954019550412014-05-07T07:59:44.935-07:002014-05-07T07:59:44.935-07:00Back in 1958, in third grade, we memorized the mul...Back in 1958, in third grade, we memorized the multiplication and division tables. We were tested daily, briefly, too less than ten minutes in speed tests.<br /><br />I even recited the tables while skipping to the jump rope!<br /><br />During my life making prototypes for IBM and Texas Instruments and building houses, being able to do math in my head was great! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-75649218382564182602014-05-05T19:18:46.363-07:002014-05-05T19:18:46.363-07:00coco commiescoco commieszepherihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10296097245211171684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-87503518905572106032014-05-01T09:08:33.386-07:002014-05-01T09:08:33.386-07:00Fractions is where things start going wrong in the...Fractions is where things start going wrong in the urban schools. Even with your method, the children have to know how to multiply numbers -- and teaching the multiplication tables today is considered passe ("we've got calculators now"). The lack of drill question is also a big problem. Modern math teaching emphasizes concepts but de-emphasizes memorization (of the multiplication tables, for example) and drill problems (which are essential to acquiring real skill). To compound the error, the emphasis on concepts goes into lengthy and utterly redundant explanations of why something is so rather than how to solve concrete problems. Even mathematicians and physicists generally don't work this way -- they try to solve concrete problems, stumble across some heuristic and ad hoc way of solving them, and only subsequently try to polish them, generalize them, and explain *why* they work (with varying degrees of accuracy and plausibility).AAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13242448989166177843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-78744081893196359162014-04-30T19:28:57.488-07:002014-04-30T19:28:57.488-07:00That's a nice overview article, but the fatal ...That's a nice overview article, but the fatal flaw is at the end, where there's an assumption made about the integrity of administration (lower rankings? Every administration I've seen has sold out as fast as possible, every time). The final line, "accreditors could change this game overnight" sure does sound like something right out of my post, but the article neglects to mention that accreditation is a fraud, as I've shown many times. It needs to be fixed first, before any other "change" to higher education will be relevant. Right now, even diploma mills are fully accredited; admin can do whatever they want under the current accreditation scheme, that's the simple fact.<br /><br />But, I sure hope the article helps adjuncts...I just don't see it happening until accreditation is fixed, and "willingness to hurt children for personal profit" is taken out of the administrator's job description.<br /><br />I lean against unions in general, but I see no other way adjuncts will even have a chance in this system. It used to be, your graduate degree WAS your union card, but Educationists destroyed that idea, watering down graduate degrees to the point of irrelevancy.<br /><br />Perhaps I will address this article eventually, but I have three more essays on CC to post. Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-31929999864714313942014-04-30T13:22:02.507-07:002014-04-30T13:22:02.507-07:00On another point of conversation: it looks as thou...On another point of conversation: it looks as though The Atlantic Monthly has been reading your confessions. This writer discusses much of the difficulty Professor Doom points out with the multiple bad ideas of depending on adjunct profs as a contingent workforce. She has some interesting data pointing to higher dropout rates for college students with multiple adjuncts teaching classes. She also makes a point that I hope Professor Doom can run with: we're facing the loss of a generation of scholarship because of the way administrations prioritize the nomadic adjuncts.<br /><br />http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adjunct-professor-crisis/361336/ <br /><br />Looking forward to your inside opinion on the veracity of this article.KevPilothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16648052923868675240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-20215213510924109552014-04-29T14:27:28.413-07:002014-04-29T14:27:28.413-07:00To be fair, the letter in question was quite illeg...To be fair, the letter in question was quite illegible. There are a few words I couldn't understand or that I had to guess based on the context. I did have the experience of not being able to understand a book in a foreign language and eventually giving up only to find it much easier years later, when I finally read the whole book.Monicahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08103879727877816655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-24955519882530673822014-04-29T11:58:09.443-07:002014-04-29T11:58:09.443-07:00Well, is spelling a relevant skill? I mean, there&...Well, is spelling a relevant skill? I mean, there's always spellcheck. How about knowing the meanings of words? I mean, you could always just look up words in the dictionary. While these skills seems about as irrelevant as working with fractions, imagine trying to read a book or write a message while having to look. up. every. single. word.<br /><br />It's almost impossible to get a narrative that way. Similarly, in math, if I put a fraction up on the board, pure chaos ensues in the lower level classes, making it impossible to address many concepts. Next time I'll explain why.<br /><br />But as far as relevance, like every skill, relevance is in the eye of the beholder, and the marketplace. Tossing a football 80 yards in the air doesn't seem to be relevant to most people's lives, but I hear tell some folks with that skill make many millions a year...<br /><br />It's also funny you mention about writing in script. There was a major court case, and the high school graduate witness hurt the case when it was shown she couldn't read script.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-40369686325887644952014-04-29T11:37:59.163-07:002014-04-29T11:37:59.163-07:00Is this still a relevant skill? Maybe it's jus...Is this still a relevant skill? Maybe it's just like having to use a fountain pen to write assignments and exams in script. It's so outdated! I can add fractions, for example, but I'm one of those who had to use a fountain pen. Monicahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08103879727877816655noreply@blogger.com