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Weekly Math UpdatesJuly 11th , 2008 Contents:
Hi folks, There's a number of things going on right now that over the next few weeks should come to light and will require a renewed effort on your part to spread the news far and wide. Be excited! Constructivism Article I stumbled across this excellent article while doing some research a couple weeks ago. CONSTRUCTIVISM IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION http://wwwcsi.unian.it/educa/inglese/matthews.html The purpose of the research was to look for parallels between constructivism and communism. Both philosophies have at the root of them that there are no absolutes. The first media article listed in the next section also mentions this about constructivism. In the case of communism, it was justification for athiesm and banishment of God. There is no absolute way to tell God exists so the state is the only absolute. The parallels don't end there but I'm going to keep this as short as possible and just share a few quotes from the article and one other site. What is Constructivism? From : http://www.funderstanding.com/constructivism.cfm (shortened and emphasis is mine)
In short, constructivism promotes no measurement of learning and in fact promotes the idea that students should be ever pondering and never arriving at an end. From the paper I mentioned at the beginning "Constructivism in Science and Mathematics Education" by Michael Matthews (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia), come the following quotes:
He quotes Michael Devitt as saying:
Mr. Matthews concludes his paper with this statement:
How can we hope to stimulate children's minds and transmit the knowledge of the ages to them when we make them start from scratch and make them question that even the things that are true that they learn might not be true? It's the Sunday School class where they tell students, "We won't be studying the Bible anymore but rather want you to go out and learn for yourself how to deal with pornography. Nothing is absolute. Have fun." This perversion of morality is being played out in school classes with devastating results. The math war is far from over as long as such philosophies are not exposed for their falsehoods.
Media Articles
Utah State mixed over findings of math study
State to make student test scores accessible online In a word... FINALLY!!! This is the digital bridge that Senator Stephenson has been working so hard on to make everyone instantly accountable for performance on tests.
Utah districts, charter schools will share $20M in merit pay Don't know much about the details on this. In Singapore they have a way to measure the value-added by a teacher and I sort of doubt that system is what is being done here. It would be nice to say "here's the starting scores for your class and where you got them to at year end." It would also be nice to contrast this with "Teacher of the Year" teachers and see how they really stack up where it counts instead of the politics played within hierarchies.
From the "How did they graduate?" camp... Dallas county official: “Black hole” is racist! (MUST READ-SHORT)
From the "it can always be worse" camp... Boys punished with detention for refusing to pray to Allah
This is pretty interesting stuff as well. Mystery tablet could redefine Jewish-Christian links
Cool Software http://www.octaveengine.com/en_casual/oecake/ Scroll down and look at a couple of the videos. Looks like the software is pretty intuitive, which it has to be since it also appears to have Japanese icons in the program. Looks very cool though.
Till next time, Oak Norton If this email was forwarded to you, please go here and sign the petition to get on my mailing list. |
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