Mind the Gap: session 2

1.  Chapter one:   In recounting her journey through many educational reforms, Diane Ravitch makes a number of provocative statements.  Choose two, quote them, and personally respond.  


1st quote: "School reformers sometimes resemble the characters in Dr. Seuss's Solla Sollew, who are always searching for that mythical land '"where they never have troubles, at least very few."'  Or Like Dumbo, they are convinced they could fly if only they had a magic feather.  In my writings, I have consistently warned that, in education, there are no shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets.  For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly."  (pg 3)


Response:  This is very true.  This is the real world, not a fairy tale.  Miracles do not realistically or automatically get handed on a silver platter.  If a positive change were to occur towards education, hard work and excellent decisions need to be made for that to happen.


2nd quote: "I grew increasingly disaffected from both the choice movement and the accountability movement.  I was beginning to see the downside of both and to understand that they were not solutions to our educational dilemmas.  As I watched both movements gain momentum across the nation, I concluded that curriculum and instruction were far more important than choice and accountability.  I feared that choice would let thousands of flowers bloom but would not strengthen American education.  It might even harm the public schools by removing the best students from schools in the poorest neighbor hoods.  I was also concerned that accountability, now a shibboleth that everyone applauds, had become mechanistic and even antithetical to good education.  Testing, I realized with dismay, had become a central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure but an end in itself.  I cam to believe that accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising standards but dumbing down the schools as states and districts strived to meet unrealistic targets.  (pg 12-13)


Response: I agree wholeheartedly with Ravitch here.  I like how she illustrates her concern on choice using the analogy of blooming flowers.  Curriculum and instruction would be the top two items on my list to focus and improve on.   




2.  Chapter two:  On page 16, Ravitch gives a brief definition of well-educated person.  How would you characterize a well-educated person?  What should any well-educated person know in today's world?


A well-educated person is someone who has developed valuable knowledge and skills from (hopefully) a solid K-12 and college education.  They need to be able to speak, write, read, and think effectively and critically when faced with a mathematical word problem, a scientific experiment, a literary novel, or any major challenges posed in the other subject areas.     


In today's world, a well-educated person is capable of making the decision that is best for them.  Along with the knowledge and skills they have obtained from school, they must also have common sense.  Without it, they won't survive in the real world.  



3.  Thinking about the class discussion on the book, what stands out for you?  What would you have liked to say that you did not say?


The one issue that stood out to me during our seminar was teaching and prepping the students for what is covered on the standardized tests (CST, STAR).  Since we (as teachers) are held accountable on how the students perform, we are pressured into doing the state's bidding (thanks to NCLB).  I am all for curriculum and want to make sure all the standards are addressed.  I do not like to be "controlled" and be required to teach a particular unit that does not flow or connect with the previous unit just to ensure that my students know it before the standardized test.  


The one thing that wasn't mentioned was study skills and how the majority of students lack this type of practice. This was brought up in my group when we were looking at the ANAR document.  We suggested that teachers should devote some time in class to teach and help students practice & develop their study skills.



4.  Choose one gap you listed from your subject area and identify 3 resources:  a web site, an article, and a book that can help you fill that gap.  List these and discuss what you learned from one of these.  


One gap of my content knowledge that I would like to have a deeper understanding is the concept of pi and why its constant is 3.14.  


A website I found is the following link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ei7KmyTctY.  This is a video of a teacher showing how the ratio of 3.14 is obtained by performing an experiment involving circular objects and a piece of string.  The hands-on activity was very helpful and effective.  I will try this out with my Geometry classes this year.   


An article that helped me solidify my understanding of pi is Making "Pi" Meaningful written by Hillard C. Tripp, published in The Mathematics Teacher.  


The book Math through the Ages by William P. Berlinghoff & Fernando Q. Gouvea devotes a couple of chapters on the history of circles.  It talks about "Measuring the Circle" and "The Story of Pi".    




5.  Your annotations of resources are meant to be both scholarly and brief.  In the blog, discuss in detail why/how any two of these articles were useful to your topic/question(s).  Consider such things as listing specific information you learned that you didn't know before; how this new learning leads to other questions or sources; why this writer was convincing; whether you would seek this writer out for other articles he/she has written, and anything else you'd like to state in a blog that others can learn from and read.  




Korenman, Lisa M. & Peynircioglu, Zehra F. (2007, Spring). Individual Differences in Learning and Remember Music: Auditory versus Visual Presentation. Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 48-64

This research article examines the effects of presentation modality and learning style preference on people's ability to learn and remember unfamiliar melodies and sentences.  Throughout the research, music is brought into the experiment to see how it affects the auditory and visual learning process.  The more meaningful the material was to the participants, the easier it was for them to retain the information.  This understanding between the two types of learning with the musical element is intriguing and helpful towards my research.  I am trying to come up with other methods and practices for students to remember mathematical formulas.


Jarrett, Joscelyn A. (1987, March). A Geometric Proof of the Sum-Product Identities for Trigonometric Functions. The Mathematics Teacher, Vol 80, No. 3, pp. 240-244.


This journal goes into more depth on how to prove the sum and product identities for trigonometric functions.  Each step of the proof is explained in detail and a visual aid is accompanied to illustrate the meaning behind the process.  I think deriving a formula and addressing the origin of where it comes from is very helpful and powerful.  This is one of the practices I want to address in my research.  



6.  Ask Meg a question.  


For our experiential resources, could we also interview former students who have taken Trigonometry or a course of mine?  I figure if I can get responses from both sides of the spectrum this will make my research more rich and worthwhile.


This blog and the previous one took the whole day for me to complete.  Hope the next blog has lesser questions. :)



Blogs I've commented on: 


Jennifer Arnold   jennsmc14.blogspot.com
Ashley Devers     adventuresinmait.blogspot.com
Melina Rinehart   MAIT-MelinaR.blogspot.com
Christina Baronian missbaronian.blogspot.com