Seattle Math Man

SAT Time Management: what you're doing wrong and how to finish the test with accuracy! Do you struggle with SAT time management? Are you wondering how it's possible for anyone to finish the test on time? In this video, I share my tips and trick...

Seattle Public Schools will be shutting down until at least the end of the month, but your child's math education doesn't have to stop.
Online one-on-one sessions are now available to make sure your student hits the ground running when the schools open back up.
Visit www.SeattleMathMan.com or write [email protected] for more info.

http://bit.ly/MakingMath

Teaching Math to People Who Think They Hate It A popular Cornell professor tries to help language-arts types learn how to "make math" instead of just studying it.

Ask ANY teacher, and they'll tell you the same.

There MUST be a balance struck between LEARNING and TESTING, and we've gotten WAY out of balance.

We're starting to see the results.

Jesse makes some good points in this piece, at his school, one of the "necks", Jess Griffin says: "why do I need to test my kids all the time, I already know what kind of car their parents drive"

These tests are about SORTING kids, and for the most part, they are sorting them along the lines of Race and Family Wealth.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/31/testing-blamed-for-drop-in-national-math-scores.html

Critics blame focus on testing for drop in national math performance NAEP math scores decline for first time since 1990, giving ammunition to critics of schools' increased focus on testing.

There are folks desperate to slash public education funding (or hold back the calls for raising it) who think that ONLINE learning is the answer.

It isn't.

Teaching Math is not inexpensive, and it never will be. We should always be looking for ways that technology can better serve teachers, but the thought that tech can replace teachers is a dangerous pipe-dream.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/31/study-on-online-charter-schools-it-is-literally-as-if-the-kid-did-not-go-to-school-for-an-entire-year/

Study on online charter schools: ‘It is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an... And a private pro-charter foundation provided support for the research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/opinion/the-importance-of-recreational-math.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

The Importance of Recreational Math ‘Fun’ problems can lead to striking, unexpected discoveries.

Congratulations to Iranian Mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani, a Professor at Stanford, who has become the first woman ever awarded a Fields Medal.

http://nyti.ms/1rbkI0f

Top Math Prize Has Its First Female Winner A professor at Stanford who made an important discovery about dynamical systems joined three other mathematicians in accepting the Fields Medal.

Will we, as a nation, ever become serious about our need to teach math teachers how to teach?

Chalkbeat's Elizabeth Green sees crumbling resolve to give Common Core a chance as a continuation of a decades old pattern of not taking teacher education seriously.

This is a good read from the NYTimes. Just be prepared to get fired up. The two excerpts below are two examples of how far off the mark we are as a nation from getting it right.

We. Must. Do. Better.



Almost half of Japanese students’ time was spent doing work that the researchers termed “invent/think.” (American students spent less than 1 percent of their time on it.)

Finland, meanwhile, made the shift by carving out time for teachers to spend learning. There, as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1,100 hours with little feedback.

http://nyti.ms/1xfSU8f

Why Do Americans Stink at Math? The Common Core should finally improve math education. The problem is that no one has taught the teachers how to teach it.