Category Archives: Education

State class-size requirements: unintended consequences

There is a voter-approved constitutional amendment in Florida that limits the number of students in (core) classes. Districts are fined for each class that is over the limit. For middle school, the limit is 22 students per class. On the … Continue reading

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Scholars and “outreach”

This summer, the American Mathematical Society released an article arguing for mathematicians to focus only on academics and research while in graduate school and post-doc programs.  Essentially, the idea is that outreach (defined in the article as increasing representation of … Continue reading

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Looking like you are helping vs. actually helping

I recently finished reading Nickel and Dimed, which describes author Barbara Ehrenreich’s experience spending a year (trying to) live on income only earned through minimum wage jobs. For part of the year, she worked for a housecleaning service. During her … Continue reading

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A JetBlue ticket agent and City Year

The Setup City Year is a national non-profit which places young adults for one year each in high needs schools to keep kids on track to graduate. City Year corps members do tutoring and mentoring and lots of other work … Continue reading

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A student solidifies her new “good student” self-image

As the school year nears its end, I have been thinking quite a bit about how to solidify the personal and academic gains my students have made this year. For students who are now understanding math better and/or have a … Continue reading

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The education system needs a seagull carrying a bucket of paint

There is a children’s book by Daniel Pinkwater called The Big Orange Splot. Though the author may not have intended it particularly in this way,  this is a book about education reform. A man named Mr. Plumbean lives on a … Continue reading

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Education portfolios (not just for MOOCs!)

I posted last week about a new website called Accredible. This site is building an online system for students in MOOCs (massive open online courses) to be able to add some substance to the certificates of accomplishment they receive when … Continue reading

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“Accredible:” a new online service to document mastery of a particular (online) course or skill

Typically, upon successful completion of a MOOC (massive open online course) through a provider such as Coursera, students are provided a certificate of accomplishment stating that the student has successfully completed the course. For example, here is my statement of … Continue reading

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Montessori conference!

I spent some time last week at the American Montessori Conference here in Orlando. Lots of thought-provoking presentations and conversations! I’m still in the early stages of learning about Montessori philosophy and practice, but much of what I have seen … Continue reading

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Teaching Robots #EDCMOOC

I have been working through a Coursera course called E-learning and Digital Cultures #EDCMOOC. This post represents the final digit artifact of my work for that course (or rather, “artefact,” as my Scotland-based instructors write). Among other things, the course … Continue reading

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