I retired to Kauai, HI 96752 in January of this year.
At local request, I have proposed myself to resuscitate some middle-school reputedly dyscalculia infected students and must inspire their teachers with a plausible course of study to bring these poor hunks into the 21st century.
I know nothing beyond my proposal but I assume these kids can already count their change. Yep! They're doing algebra and don't know it. Challenged as they are, they don't get that math is central to our lives.
My proposal:
Give 'em all old laptops with FB15 along with a course designed here.
According to the Wikipedia article you cited, people with this condition have trouble even telling one number is larger than another. I doubt they can count change.
vdecampo wrote:According to the Wikipedia article you cited, people with this condition have trouble even telling one number is larger than another. I doubt they can count change.
-Vince
I'm afraid I overstated the kid's problem. Serves me right for subscribing Visual Thesaurus's word of the day.
Basically, the kids are laggards in practical math. They make little connection between the study of mathematics and their everyday needs. Their teachers have thrown up their hands and have asked for volunteer help for the students and themselves as their teachers.
This was my proposal.
I would like to propose my teaching a course in elementary computer programming. Programming is imo the easiest (most fun) way to teach/learn elementary algebra, geometry and trig. Kids (call me Uncle Kid) love the idea of controlling computer graphics which requires all three disciplines. Once on board, you never get off.
Equipment required? Assuming a class of 6, how about 6 old laptops for the kids/teachers to do their classwork and homework on. I'll provide the software and individual curriculums as needs make themselves clear in each student. I could bring this about well within a $200 budget. First class stop would be instilling a working familiarity with the QWERTY key board. Two finger pecking is fine, hunting is the drag.
Right. I wrote that a while ago. I have since bit the bullet and installed .23.
Thanks again to you folks. I'm thinking, for example, that elementary graphics pgs (a bouncing pixel for a start) would be an excellent way to get into Cartesian coordinates. I would certainly welcome any suggestions you all may have.
There is wrote learning without understanding and some people are very good at that. I call them computer brains. They remember a lot but their analytic abilities are not very good. Of course there is no point being smart without data to make use of those smarts. Brilliant people have both. My view of mathematics is, like music, some have more natural ability than others. Probably the earlier you start the better, like learning a language or playing an instrument regardless of any innate ability.
Whatever you do it has to be fun. I was never able to get my children interested in programming, not even programming games. They found it tedious and boring. I have no idea why I don't feel the same way.
Whatever you do it has to be fun. I was never able to get my children interested in programming, not even programming games. They found it tedious and boring. I have no idea why I don't feel the same way.
Thanks. I posit that Logo is probably too high a language for the purposes of teaching basic math. The difference between a programmer and the rest? A programmer thrives on the tedium of debugging.
ETA: Hmmmm. Logo would be perfect for an animated intro to the Cartesian world. Want to write it?
there is a tendency for teachers to teach what they want to teach
rather than aid the kids to learn what they want / actually need to learn
If you are smart and bored with the subject you just blitz through it and throw the garbage over your shoulder at the end of each lesson.If you are dumb and bored ....then ask " me am i bothered ? "
If you have dumb or bored kids you have to make the maths relevant. Ask them what real life maths problems they would like to be able to solve.
School fails when the teacher gets to tick their boxes and the kids don't get to tick theirs. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
KEY human beings like closure. If they don't know the answer they are often compelled to guess. Maths being an exact science doesn't reward guesses, it penalizes guesses.
The key habit they have to acquire is " don't guess maths " , if you don't know the answer then write " f... knows as the answer"
You see social pressure from teachers and classmates strongly compel them to put forward guesses. The more pressure you put on them to write an answer the more they will put forward a guess....thus you have trapped them in a corner with no hope of escape or victory
For students to learn every battle must end in a convincing victory, they must be 101% confident that their answer is right. To know why they know. Its all about building a pyramid of knowledge of unbreakable material one block at a time.
The maths whizz can build a 4 dimensional flyingbuttress in their minds eye...that why they are a whizz. Maths dullards can only build pyramid shaped structures and perhaps simple bridges if they know the blocks well enough.
The pyramid needs to be built up 1 layer at a time , to many gaps and the whole thing collapses as you try and lay the next block.
