[IAEP] educational brew

[Costello, Rob R]

i think Kathy is really on to something here ..taps some things i've been 
turning over and thinking of sending to the list

my day job is now working for company that designs educational maths software

i don't have time to do anything much here - for sugar - but i will offer these 
observations in the hope they might help - will use maths as example ..probably 
applies to greater or lessor extent to other curriculum areas

most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation' 'addresses the 
curriculum'

i now think its risky to try to push a cool concept that doesn't do that ...new 
media has to 'look like' the old media, at least to some extent, for a time, 
and then smuggle in some of its new capabilities ...to misquote something Alan 
Kay said somewhere ...and he might have quoted it from somewhere

i still think that Papert is a genius and i love his writing, but i have come 
to think his approach to constructionism is too polarised ... he seems to think 
nothing good can come out of 'school maths' (ie that its procedural learning 
based approach amounts to 'feeding kids the menu') and the whole thing should 
be redone (eg with a Logo flavour)

thats an appealing thought to people like me ...probably to many here ...since 
it seems there is a comparable or greater level of learning and analytical 
process in tinkering with more self directed programming, designing your own 
models etc, 

but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content

for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been looking at 
lots of them in detail  recently) that is doing much more than including a few 
references to recursion or iteration...(there was more 'programming' in my year 
12 course in 1985)

the crowd i work for are successful because they have done what Kathy describes 
- built up a strong sequence of activities that address traditional maths 
learning  .. now reworking that for different curricula

Bryan Berry in his comments from Nepal also talks about this - the need for 
content that clearly addresses the curriculum ...
also a stronger basic framework for planning generic lessons or chunks of 
curriculum (so they leaned on moodle and integrated flash ...but he talks of a 
html5 / js 'education on rails' sort of template that has 'fill in' sections 
for lesson plans, assessment etc)

personally, i tend to baulk at the cookie cutter aspect of this (and it needs 
to be customisable or will strike mismatch with local approaches and models)

I would have suggested just going down the scratch / etoys / logo / gamemaker 
sort of line if i'd been advising at the time
(and maybe pippy but I couldn't get it to run and the code samples look a bit 
complex for beginners) ...-

that is, i would have been more in the 'provide interesting tools and see what 
happens' camp - and i now think it would not have got traction...its an 
acquired taste that is too unfamiliar to reach critical mass, even if the 
devices are physically present

it never did transform my class room either, unless i kept experimenting with 
new ways to use and model the tools ...Alan Kay talks of road testing and 
refining good lessons with a few teachers over extended periods - thats great . 
but you have to face the kids for the rest of the week and year somehow as well 
... so something more standard will have to go in there in the meantime while 
we all develop the examplar lessons of how etoys can be used to teach science 
etc

i see a lot of productive thrashing out of more technical aspects and 
communication here (how many on that wiki for example :)  - but not much on 
which theory of instructional design is really held to, and how it really 
influences the design of the software

at the risk of dragging practical developers into a theoretical discussion, i 
would suggest sugar needs to more clearly nail down its educational position... 
and then some structures like lesson templates .. which will inevitably be 
limited in some ways

i know without developers nothing happens .. but without a clear educational 
vision it seems to me that the end point development vision may also be unclear 
... maybe a group of people with both interests needs to look at that  
(probably not me, and yes, possible democracy issue)

ie i don't think the technical agenda in itself cannot lead that discussion ..

letting it just evolve  - eg a smorgas board of possible learning objects - 
most recently circuits etc - is interesting ...but i think would benefit from a 
consistent educational model behind it ...its not much good hanging various 
offerings out there suggestively for teachers and kids to use (there are a lot 
of examples of governments spending a fortune producing 'learning objects' in 
the hope that teachers will sequence them together for kids.. by and large it 
has not been a productive path...)

the problem is that those seeking and making these things are not your typical 
time pressued teachers - whos

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 17:42, Costello, Rob R
 wrote:
>
> at the risk of dragging practical developers into a theoretical discussion,
> i would suggest sugar needs to more clearly nail down its educational
> position... and then some structures like lesson templates .. which will
> inevitably be limited in some ways

I was hoping that this decision would be taken at the activity,
content and deployment levels and that the Sugar platform itself
wouldn't need to take a position that excludes the others.

Not about being "agnostic about learning" but about providing a
superset of what each approach requires so more people can come play
together regardless of their beliefs.

Regards,

Tomeu

> i know without developers nothing happens .. but without a clear educational
> vision it seems to me that the end point development vision may also be
> unclear ... maybe a group of people with both interests needs to look at
> that  (probably not me, and yes, possible democracy issue)
>
> ie i don't think the technical agenda in itself cannot lead that discussion
> ..
>
> letting it just evolve  - eg a smorgas board of possible learning objects -
> most recently circuits etc - is interesting ...but i think would benefit
> from a consistent educational model behind it ...its not much good hanging
> various offerings out there suggestively for teachers and kids to use (there
> are a lot of examples of governments spending a fortune producing 'learning
> objects' in the hope that teachers will sequence them together for kids.. by
> and large it has not been a productive path...)
>
> the problem is that those seeking and making these things are not your
> typical time pressued teachers - whose IT skills and technical background
> are not, by and large, in the same league as developers (and developers do
> not always have a feel for the classroom).. relatively few teachers will
> seek it out if there is not a series of coherent lessons nearby
>
> [the model of what to make - platform (scratch, etoys, etc) or more limited
> demo is also had to pin down - at what level do you extend  / adapt /
> restart ]
>
> these somewhat conserative (modest? balanced?) conclusions are hard lessons
> for me ..since i was one of the ones who was still programming in the small
> hours when teaching (which is to say the more open ended stuff appeals to
> me) - and i always hope that something like geogebra or scratch will bridge
> the gap between being easy to customise and flexible in application ...maybe
> something will
>
> i also fully agree with Kathy that personalisation can mean software
> intelligently adapts the sequence of lessons... i've seen that in action as
> well
>
> i also think the nice open ended stuff needs to be in there...but needs to
> function as extension and example and context ... not the main approach for
> most kids .. much as i think the approach adds the 'working mathematically'
> aspect that all the content needs and supports
>
> have discussed this with Bill before .. and while he doesn't necessarily
> agree with my figures (i think does with broad concept), but for the sake of
> provoking discussion, i would say 80% of the learning game can be
> instructionist sequences of learning
>
> 20% can then be the more open ended constructionist approach
>
> my own preferences go the other way, so its against the grain for me to come
> to that conclusion ...but i think its a more viable and realistic approach
> to take
>
> i know traditional curriculum can get suffocating and dry ..but the answer
> is not to throw it out or pretend its not a reality that is still there
>
> Bryan says he would aim at 'content first' next time  - i can now see the
> logic of this
> not just access to wikipedia ...but recognisable sequences of lesson
> materials
>
> for what its worth i also think the curriki.org approach is interesting -
> lots of content being donated from everywhere - but my feeling is its going
> to be a problem having so much in there without some consistent format or
> approach.. that is someone needs to pull it together
>
> a work of art has to choose some limitations.. i gather the XO hardware has
> done this ... and no doubt the software developers who have laboured
> heroically have done so as well... i just think curriculum design needs to
> be more in the mix, IMHO
>
> may be wrong ..and discount my view down as i don't think i can input much
> time required to significantly contribute to any of this (and my
> background is not linux flavoured) ...but i would still suggest considering
> the view of an educator looking at ICT enabled learning  ..
>
> {i;ve done laptop trials with kids in MS environments as well - and in my
> view they can make a difference in enabling a self directed approach to
> part of the curriculum (less than 20% of the course in most settings) - but
> i don't think in themselvs would much compensate for lack of formal
> curriculum or teacher skills (so unless there is a clear matching of co

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Bill Kerr]

in part this is a discussion about what works in the educational marketplace
and what is cutting edge and pushes education forward, the latter will
usually be a minority and difficult or nearly impossible to implement
position

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.”
— George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
(quoted by Ian Piumarta in a
paperadvocating
widespread unreasonable behaviour)

given that the initial plan of selling  millions of xos direct to
governments did not eventuate - and that the xo spawned commercial netbooks
- then the marketplace pressures are impossible to avoid, idealism meets
capitalist reality - a hard problem to solve

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:12 AM, Costello, Rob R <
costello.ro...@edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:

>  i think Kathy is really on to something here ..taps some things i've been
> turning over and thinking of sending to the list
>
> my day job is now working for company that designs educational maths
> software
>
> i don't have time to do anything much here - for sugar - but i will offer
> these observations in the hope they might help - will use maths as example
> ..probably applies to greater or lessor extent to other curriculum areas
>
> most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation' 'addresses the
> curriculum'
>
> i now think its risky to try to push a cool concept that doesn't do that
> ...new media has to 'look like' the old media, at least to some extent, for
> a time, and then smuggle in some of its new capabilities ...to misquote
> something Alan Kay said somewhere ...and he might have quoted it from
> somewhere
>
> i still think that Papert is a genius and i love his writing, but i have
> come to think his approach to constructionism is too polarised ... he seems
> to think nothing good can come out of 'school maths' (ie that its procedural
> learning based approach amounts to 'feeding kids the menu') and the whole
> thing should be redone (eg with a Logo flavour)
>
> thats an appealing thought to people like me ...probably to many here
> ...since it seems there is a comparable or greater level of learning and
> analytical process in tinkering with more self directed programming,
> designing your own models etc, 
>
> but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content
>
> for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been looking
> at lots of them in detail  recently) that is doing much more than including
> a few references to recursion or iteration...(there was more 'programming'
> in my year 12 course in 1985)
>
> the crowd i work for are successful because they have done what Kathy
> describes - built up a strong sequence of activities that address
> traditional maths learning  .. now reworking that for different curricula
>
> Bryan Berry in his comments from Nepal also talks about this - the need for
> content that clearly addresses the curriculum ... also a stronger basic
> framework for planning generic lessons or chunks of curriculum (so they
> leaned on moodle and integrated flash ...but he talks of a html5 / js
> 'education on rails' sort of template that has 'fill in' sections for
> lesson plans, assessment etc)
>
> personally, i tend to baulk at the cookie cutter aspect of this (and it
> needs to be customisable or will strike mismatch with local approaches and
> models)
>
> I would have suggested just going down the scratch / etoys / logo /
> gamemaker sort of line if i'd been advising at the time
> (and maybe pippy but I couldn't get it to run and the code samples look a
> bit complex for beginners) ...-
>
> that is, i would have been more in the 'provide interesting tools and see
> what happens' camp - and i now think it would not have got traction...its an
> acquired taste that is too unfamiliar to reach critical mass, even if the
> devices are physically present
>
> it never did transform my class room either, unless i kept experimenting
> with new ways to use and model the tools ...Alan Kay talks of road testing
> and refining good lessons with a few teachers over extended periods - thats
> great . but you have to face the kids for the rest of the week and year
> somehow as well ... so something more standard will have to go in there in
> the meantime while we all develop the examplar lessons of how etoys can be
> used to teach science etc
>
> i see a lot of productive thrashing out of more technical aspects and
> communication here (how many on that wiki for example :)  - but not much on
> which theory of instructional design is really held to, and how it really
> influences the design of the software
>
> at the risk of dragging practical developers into a theoretical discussion,
> i would suggest sugar needs to more clearly nail down its educational
> position... and then some structures like lesson templa

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Bill Kerr]

The other thing I should have said about rob's post but didn't was that I
pretty much agree with all of it as a description of the reality we face,
ie. my experiences of being an innovative teacher are similar enough to what
rob describes as to make it pointless to quibble about the differences

my support for the continuation of widespread unreasonable behaviour (in the
xo tradition) is based on acceptance of that reality

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Bill Kerr  wrote:

> in part this is a discussion about what works in the educational
> marketplace and what is cutting edge and pushes education forward, the
> latter will usually be a minority and difficult or nearly impossible to
> implement position
>
> “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man
> persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
> depends on the unreasonable man.”
> — George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
> (quoted by Ian Piumarta in a 
> paperadvocating widespread 
> unreasonable behaviour)
>
> given that the initial plan of selling  millions of xos direct to
> governments did not eventuate - and that the xo spawned commercial netbooks
> - then the marketplace pressures are impossible to avoid, idealism meets
> capitalist reality - a hard problem to solve
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:12 AM, Costello, Rob R <
> costello.ro...@edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
>
>>  i think Kathy is really on to something here ..taps some things i've
>> been turning over and thinking of sending to the list
>>
>> my day job is now working for company that designs educational maths
>> software
>>
>> i don't have time to do anything much here - for sugar - but i will offer
>> these observations in the hope they might help - will use maths as example
>> ..probably applies to greater or lessor extent to other curriculum areas
>>
>> most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation' 'addresses
>> the curriculum'
>>
>> i now think its risky to try to push a cool concept that doesn't do that
>> ...new media has to 'look like' the old media, at least to some extent, for
>> a time, and then smuggle in some of its new capabilities ...to misquote
>> something Alan Kay said somewhere ...and he might have quoted it from
>> somewhere
>>
>> i still think that Papert is a genius and i love his writing, but i have
>> come to think his approach to constructionism is too polarised ... he seems
>> to think nothing good can come out of 'school maths' (ie that its procedural
>> learning based approach amounts to 'feeding kids the menu') and the whole
>> thing should be redone (eg with a Logo flavour)
>>
>> thats an appealing thought to people like me ...probably to many here
>> ...since it seems there is a comparable or greater level of learning and
>> analytical process in tinkering with more self directed programming,
>> designing your own models etc, 
>>
>> but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content
>>
>> for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been looking
>> at lots of them in detail  recently) that is doing much more than including
>> a few references to recursion or iteration...(there was more 'programming'
>> in my year 12 course in 1985)
>>
>> the crowd i work for are successful because they have done what Kathy
>> describes - built up a strong sequence of activities that address
>> traditional maths learning  .. now reworking that for different curricula
>>
>> Bryan Berry in his comments from Nepal also talks about this - the need
>> for content that clearly addresses the curriculum ... also a stronger
>> basic framework for planning generic lessons or chunks of curriculum (so
>> they leaned on moodle and integrated flash ...but he talks of a html5 / js
>> 'education on rails' sort of template that has 'fill in' sections for
>> lesson plans, assessment etc)
>>
>> personally, i tend to baulk at the cookie cutter aspect of this (and it
>> needs to be customisable or will strike mismatch with local approaches and
>> models)
>>
>> I would have suggested just going down the scratch / etoys / logo /
>> gamemaker sort of line if i'd been advising at the time
>> (and maybe pippy but I couldn't get it to run and the code samples look a
>> bit complex for beginners) ...-
>>
>> that is, i would have been more in the 'provide interesting tools and see
>> what happens' camp - and i now think it would not have got traction...its an
>> acquired taste that is too unfamiliar to reach critical mass, even if the
>> devices are physically present
>>
>> it never did transform my class room either, unless i kept experimenting
>> with new ways to use and model the tools ...Alan Kay talks of road testing
>> and refining good lessons with a few teachers over extended periods - thats
>> great . but you have to face the kids for the rest of the week and year
>> somehow as well ... so something more standard will have to go in ther

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Albert Cahalan]

Costello, Rob R writes:

> most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation'
> 'addresses the curriculum'
...
> but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content

To a teacher, is curriculum the raw state/national standard or is it
instead the content of the particular textbook that the school uses?

In any case, you're up against a compatibility issue. Students will
transfer, sometimes during the school year, and hopefully graduate.
An oddball school does a disservice to the students.

> for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been
> looking at lots of them in detail recently) that is doing much
> more than including a few references to recursion or iteration...
> (there was more 'programming' in my year 12 course in 1985)

Which other math would you eliminate to make room for this,
and what will happen to the students if they transfer or graduate
without knowing that other math?

BTW, though I like computer science too, this stuff isn't that useful.

> i also fully agree with Kathy that personalisation can mean
> software intelligently adapts the sequence of lessons...
> i've seen that in action as well

I've been thinking about this. It's really valuable, though not
so easy to implement. Let's take 4th grade math as an example:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Math4Team/Resources/Curriculum_Chart

Suppose you wrote up lessons for all those. You'd get a lot of
overlap with the California standard, the Iowa standard, etc.
The overlap becomes severe if you add the rest of the grades.
Imagine having lessons to cover all standards.

To benefit from a given lesson, one must master any prerequisites.
This should remind you of building software with the "make" program
or perhaps installing software from RPM packages. Leaving aside the
minor issue of review, there is no point to presenting students with
old lessons. Leaving aside the minor issue of "testing out", there
is no point to presenting students with lessons that they have not
prepared for.

You could set up "4th grade math for Massachusetts" as a list of
things to master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile with
a target that exists purely to have a list of prerequisites.
This target becomes a goal to reach. Once the goal is chosen, the
software supplies lessons as required to reach it. When more than
one lesson would be appropriate, allowing student choice could help
to keep the student in a good mood for learning.

Sadly, a real-world system would also need to provide distraction
for the students who are at risk for completing the grade before
the end of the year. Traditional schools don't tolerate that well.

> i know traditional curriculum can get suffocating and dry ..

Of course, dealing with "suffocating and dry" stuff is a valuable
life skill. :-/ Sitting down to slog through something boring is
not easy for many people.
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Maria Droujkova]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Bill Kerr  wrote:
> The other thing I should have said about rob's post but didn't was that I
> pretty much agree with all of it as a description of the reality we face,
> ie. my experiences of being an innovative teacher are similar enough to what
> rob describes as to make it pointless to quibble about the differences
>
> my support for the continuation of widespread unreasonable behaviour (in the
> xo tradition) is based on acceptance of that reality

In my experience, the homeschool community provides a nice space for
meaningfully unreasonable behavior. Especially unschoolers.

Also, consider research restrictions. It takes from several months to
half a year in my county to get all the necessary permissions for an
educational study in public schools, whereas it only takes the
internal IRB approval to work with homescholers.

Families and local communities should not be overlooked as powerful
agents of change.

-- 
Cheers,
MariaD

Make math your own, to make your own math.

http://www.naturalmath.com social math site
http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath our email group
http://www.phenixsolutions.com empowering our innovations
___
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IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Kathy Pusztavari]

I think that is a great point, Maria.  The homeschool community, especially
in the US (that I know of), are great at field testing things.  They are a
resource that should not be overlooked as they are able to make use of new
innovation quicker and are unable to afford to be as picky.  They tend to
make use of free quality programs off the internet.

-Kathy 

-Original Message-
From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org
[mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Maria Droujkova
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 4:43 AM
To: Bill Kerr
Cc: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; Costello,Rob R
Subject: Re: [IAEP] educational brew

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Bill Kerr  wrote:
> The other thing I should have said about rob's post but didn't was 
> that I pretty much agree with all of it as a description of the 
> reality we face, ie. my experiences of being an innovative teacher are 
> similar enough to what rob describes as to make it pointless to 
> quibble about the differences
>
> my support for the continuation of widespread unreasonable behaviour 
> (in the xo tradition) is based on acceptance of that reality

In my experience, the homeschool community provides a nice space for
meaningfully unreasonable behavior. Especially unschoolers.

Also, consider research restrictions. It takes from several months to half a
year in my county to get all the necessary permissions for an educational
study in public schools, whereas it only takes the internal IRB approval to
work with homescholers.

Families and local communities should not be overlooked as powerful agents
of change.

--
Cheers,
MariaD

Make math your own, to make your own math.

http://www.naturalmath.com social math site
http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath our email group
http://www.phenixsolutions.com empowering our innovations
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Kathy Pusztavari]

"You could set up '4th grade math for Massachusetts' as a list of things to
master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile with a target that
exists purely to have a list of prerequisites." 

Albert - that is exactly what I was referring to.  A set of curriculum to
get you started but a good teacher could then go in and adapt the files or
make file for their standards (or find a local nerd to help).  I referred to
Turtle Typing.  Being a linux numbskull, I accidentally ran the MAKEFILE and
found out that it seeds your lessons.  Honestly, I had heard of MAKEFILE but
I didn't know what it did.  I threw those lessons into a temp folder and
replaced them all with my lessons.  I'm pretty good at cut and paste so the
5 lessons became 30 lessons and I only got started!  The lessons were
.lesson files written in python format so you have to figure out what format
and data the file needs to run the program the way you want.  I'll have to
be honest, when I saw Turtle Typing - that is when I figured out how
powerful activities can be for sugar.  I was able to use sugar to actually
do something important that - honestly - no other program could do.  Teach
typing at a level my son could actually succeed.

I might be slow but I get there eventually.

-Kathy
-Original Message-
From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org
[mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Albert Cahalan
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 2:04 AM
To: ka...@kathyandcalvin.com; costello.ro...@edumail.vic.gov.au; Bill Kerr;
iaep
Subject: Re: [IAEP] educational brew

Costello, Rob R writes:

> most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation'
> 'addresses the curriculum'
...
> but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content

To a teacher, is curriculum the raw state/national standard or is it instead
the content of the particular textbook that the school uses?

In any case, you're up against a compatibility issue. Students will
transfer, sometimes during the school year, and hopefully graduate.
An oddball school does a disservice to the students.

> for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been 
> looking at lots of them in detail recently) that is doing much more 
> than including a few references to recursion or iteration...
> (there was more 'programming' in my year 12 course in 1985)

Which other math would you eliminate to make room for this, and what will
happen to the students if they transfer or graduate without knowing that
other math?

BTW, though I like computer science too, this stuff isn't that useful.

> i also fully agree with Kathy that personalisation can mean software 
> intelligently adapts the sequence of lessons...
> i've seen that in action as well

I've been thinking about this. It's really valuable, though not so easy to
implement. Let's take 4th grade math as an example:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Math4Team/Resources/Curriculum_Chart

Suppose you wrote up lessons for all those. You'd get a lot of overlap with
the California standard, the Iowa standard, etc.
The overlap becomes severe if you add the rest of the grades.
Imagine having lessons to cover all standards.

To benefit from a given lesson, one must master any prerequisites.
This should remind you of building software with the "make" program or
perhaps installing software from RPM packages. Leaving aside the minor issue
of review, there is no point to presenting students with old lessons.
Leaving aside the minor issue of "testing out", there is no point to
presenting students with lessons that they have not prepared for.

You could set up "4th grade math for Massachusetts" as a list of things to
master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile with a target that
exists purely to have a list of prerequisites.
This target becomes a goal to reach. Once the goal is chosen, the software
supplies lessons as required to reach it. When more than one lesson would be
appropriate, allowing student choice could help to keep the student in a
good mood for learning.

Sadly, a real-world system would also need to provide distraction for the
students who are at risk for completing the grade before the end of the
year. Traditional schools don't tolerate that well.

> i know traditional curriculum can get suffocating and dry ..

Of course, dealing with "suffocating and dry" stuff is a valuable life
skill. :-/ Sitting down to slog through something boring is not easy for
many people.
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Maria Droujkova]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 5:03 AM, Albert Cahalan  wrote:
>
> To benefit from a given lesson, one must master any prerequisites.

The good news is that as time goes on, people (slowly) develop ways to
help kids acquire prerequisites within learning new topics. For
example, you can build lessons about proportionality on
multiplication, which you can build on addition, which you can build
on counting. Alternatively, you can work with unfair sharing,
growth/shadows/perspective and other similarity, or intensive unit
(e.g. speed) metaphors directly, incorporating development of
multiplicative reasoning and its coordination with additive reasoning
into this work. As the culture progresses, math gets more and more
"packed," prerequisites and all.

I found Bill's non-universals summary to be quite useful in thinking
about these issues, especially the "similarities over differences"
part http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals As we figure
out to help kids work with similarities in deeper ways, and as we
uncover better metaphors for similarities, prerequisites get subsumed
into other topics.

-- 
Cheers,
MariaD

Make math your own, to make your own math.

http://www.naturalmath.com social math site
http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath our email group
http://www.phenixsolutions.com empowering our innovations
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Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Albert Cahalan]

Kathy Pusztavari writes:

> "You could set up '4th grade math for Massachusetts' as a list of
> things to master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile
> with a target that exists purely to have a list of prerequisites."
>
> Albert - that is exactly what I was referring to.  A set of curriculum
> to get you started but a good teacher could then go in and adapt the
> files or make file for their standards (or find a local nerd to help).
> I referred to Turtle Typing.  Being a linux numbskull, I accidentally
> ran the MAKEFILE and found out that it seeds your lessons.  Honestly,
> I had heard of MAKEFILE but I didn't know what it did.

Sorry about that. The explanation wasn't any good for non-programmers.
I suppose I can try to explain "make". Here you go:

Suppose you had a file, commonly called "Makefile", containing this:

###

4th-grade-math: 4th-grade-fractions long-division

long-division: simple-division big-multiplication
teach long-division.lesson
teach long-division-extra-work.lesson
teach long-division-extra-work-2.lesson

simple-division: simple-multiplication
teach simple-division.lesson

4th-grade-fractions: simplify-fractions measure-fractions

measure-fractions: ruler
teach measure-fractions.lesson
teach measure-fractions-extra-work.lesson

ruler:
teach ruler.lesson

simplify-fractions: lcd gcd simple-division what-fraction-is
teach simplify-fractions.lession

[ ... lots of stuff missing ... ]

count-to-3:
teach count-to-3.lesson

###

Each item on the left, before a colon, is something you could create.
(in this case, you're creating an education) Each item to the right,
after a colon, is a prerequisite for the item to its left. The indented
lines are commands that are needed to create things.

To learn 4th-grade-math, you don't actually need to create anything.
You just need to satisfy the prerequisites. So if we ask the "make"
program to create 4th-grade-math, it adds 4th-grade-fractions and
long-division to the list of things you want to learn and starts in
on them. Once those prerequisites are done, 4th-grade-math is done.

The long-division knowledge also has prerequisites, simple-division
and big-multiplication. Prerequisites must be done prior to starting
a lesson, so we add those to the list of things to learn and keep
going. Unlike 4th-grade-math, long-division has lessons to teach.
We have to come back to those after the prerequisites are satisfied.

4th-grade-fractions is more like 4th-grade-math. It doesn't have a
lesson by itself; it is just a list of other things to learn.

Eventually you get to a starting point with no prerequisites. That is
count-to-3 in my example. There may be more than one starting point,
in which case they may be done in any order. Reasonable starting points
always have lessons. Those are taught, completing the starting points.
This satisfies prerequisites for other things, which thus become
available as starting points. Ultimately 4th-grade-math becomes a
starting point, which is trivial because it has no lessons. Since that
was the original request, you're done.

If we were actually going to run that file using "make", we'd need a
command called "teach". Maybe the "teach" command sends a text message
to a human teacher, or maybe it runs a Sugar activity. The "teach"
command just needs to ensure that the material is taught.

There are plenty of details that keep this from working exactly as
written. Students may forget things. I used spaces instead of tabs
to indent the lines. I left out a big chunk. I hope this cleared up
what I meant though.

That "MAKEFILE" you mention might not be a real Makefile. It might
be a script that runs the "make" command with a particular Makefile
specified.
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Re: [IAEP] educational brew

[Costello, Rob R]

Indeed...I agree Albert 

I think working out that sequence, its dependencies, and lesson
resources,  would be a great goal 

The only practical issue with this is it takes so much time ...that I
still can't see its that likely here or in any educational system
...the discipline and time (and money) resources to slow down enough to
do the architecture (working out the sequence and implementing it) for
that sort of approach properly is the issue ...so everything tends to be
done in a more fragmented way 

Its like a reset is needed - take half a dozen maths and IT types and
deconstruct maths learning sequences and curriculum resources like this
(over say a year) (there are various research based maths continua and
sequences that would make this possible) ...then take a few dedicated
programmers who could implement all this into a lesson framework that
kept track of pathways and progress

If it could be done, I think this would be a very useful resource - 80%
of the game in my view

I also think we need some more open ended tools - etoys, Scratch, Logo,
geogebra, like- for exploring and building models ...and maybe
illustrating and playing with concepts from the 'makefile sequence' -
20% of the game

All this is loosely on the radar in some commercial places, but still
perhaps not as deeply reset as is needed, and its not open source

I'd also like to see the maths content get more computer inflected  -
not just use computers to deliver old content, but modify the content -
eg different ways to construct, say polygons, or find primes, or
whatever the nominal maths is  ...the discipline or learning a
programming language could run parallel to learning maths...but that
also requires a something of a reset in curriculum in how IT and maths
relate... which seems even more unlikely, unfortunately  ..maybe I'm
wrong  

Papert's complaint about the state of 'school maths' getting ossified in
one historical state really would require maths content to change like
this ...and the education system hasn't yet signed on to that, as far as
I can see ..computing as productive child's play for learning maths (via
say Logo - or maybe Mathematica today) isn't really in view anymore..
(this would shift the 80/20 balance - could allow say 50-50) 

Re the direct instruction vs constructivism/constructionism thing - I
think that one can teach 'directly' in a way that still respects that
students have to 'construct' their own understanding ...

Most 'direct instruction' maths lesson (indeed most maths lessons
everywhere - according to various international video studies) have
portions of direct instruction, and portions of students attempting to
work more or less independently to apply some of that to 'problems' -
which is at least some concession to the need to 'make your own
connections' even after you've been 'told' 

(there is an Australian novel 'all the green year' where the main
character praises his new teacher - 'she taught simultaneous equations
so well I felt I had discovered the art myself' - which reconciles the
two approaches ..and seems a feasible comment to me)

If maths learning is always limited to that level it no doubt risks
getting too closed and mimetic, (eg may create a culture of maths as
simply right answers to closed textbook questions) - but there is still
a little nod to constructivism in the need to attempt various problems
and work out understanding on one's own - while there is still the
bigger challenge of feeling maths as more open and productive - maybe
representing learning in another form - say writing a program to model
or explore it - is a good way to stretch beyond those limits ... 

its this I remember from my own schooling as one of the few times that
all that math learning really felt creative to me  - and why I feel we
have left something out of the mix in schools today, even though there
are countless more computers around  ... even the top end of maths
learning in school does not push much creative modelling etc in this
sense

One thing I liked about the 'drawing on the right side of the brain'
approach is that it respects the need to load up your mind with
conscious material - to wrestle with it and tackle it - and then also to
walk away and turn things over ...ie the role of 'the unconscious' in
pondering and delivering insights  and solving problems - Poincare like
- is not well respected in school

I think direct instruction needs to keep this in mind - the grappling
with difficult things and coming back to it - constructing understanding
- is partly how we learn - not just consciously reciting modelled
processes

more in the learning stew

Rob 


> -Original Message-
> From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:iaep-
> boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Albert Cahalan
> Sent: Wed