News: How people learn Or dont
Don't clean the whiteboard
In the previous post, I talked about classroom archaeology: the concept that we leave behind evidence of the learning that goes on in our classroom for others to find, and since people will see this evidence whether we like it or not, we should leave some useful artefacts on purpose.
Classroom archaeology
At the combined MERGA/AAMT conference in 2011, one of the keynote speakers was Matt Skoss, a high school maths teacher in the Northern Territory. I talk a lot about how much we at uni have to learn from schoolteachers and Matt was case in point: he had a lot of most excellent stuff to say. But the thing that stuck with me the most – and is still with me more than 15 months later – was the concept of viewing your own classroom as an archaeological dig.
Kindy is awesome
My younger daughter started kindy last week, and I got to actually be there for the beginning of her first day. It was one of those moments only a parent can understand as I realised with both excitement and sadness that my little baby was not a baby any more.
Things I didn't learn from OZCOTS 2012
A couple of weeks ago I found out that OZCOTS (×îÐÂÌÇÐÄVlogn Conference on Teaching Statistics) was being held here in Adelaide. I thought that I should go to it, since I seem to be spending rather a lot of time teaching statistics these days. And so I went.
Can I take a cheat sheet?
The first maths exams for the year are tomorrow, so recently I've been talking to more and more students about exams. To be clear, I'm not complaining about this! It's a really important part of the MLC's role to give students advice about exams, since they have such a huge impact on the students' experience of learning maths at uni. We can make a big difference to people by simply helping them cope with this stressful time.
Statistics and Insomnia
Some years ago, I saw a snippet on the ABC science show Catalyst about insomnia – in particular, the flavour of insomnia where a person has trouble falling asleep at all. They reported on a trial study investigating the effectiveness of a tortuous new treatment for chronic insomnia. (You can find the published research here: .)
Mathematical collocations
There is a phrase people use when talking about statistics that really bugs me. It's "non-parametric data". I see it all the time in statistical teaching materials and I hate it because I know what they mean, but what they've said is simply wrong. Whoever writes this phrase has a tenuous grasp of what the word non-parametric means. If they really understood what it meant, they would realise that the word non-parametric can only be used to apply to a statistical procedure, not to the data itself; the words "non-parametric" and "data" just can't be put together like that.
Bathelling in assignments
The Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd defines the word bathel like this:
Quick Iggle Piggle! Catch Makka Pakka's Og-Pog before it hits the Ninky Nonk!
The CLPD head administrator Cathy told me a story the other day about an experience she had on the train: She was sitting opposite a pair of students, and one was helping the other prepare for a test. The first student was reading out words from a stack of cards and the second was trying to correctly say what they mean. After listening to this for a while, Cathy leaned over and asked what it was they were studying. The students said "pure maths".
[Read more about Quick Iggle Piggle! Catch Makka Pakka's Og-Pog before it hits the Ninky Nonk!]
The shoemaker and Dobby
Do you know the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves? Well, I've known it since I was very young. It's a Brothers Grimm, and it goes something like this:
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