Borland Educational News and Views

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Mediocrity In Math Instruction

In an effort to improve the average level of mathematical competence among American students, a new experiment has been under way for several years in our schools.

Called "Whole Group" instruction or "Whole Math" by some, this movement is based on the laudable idea that all students should function at or above a minimum acceptable level of mathematical competence.

What this means in practice, however, is that all students, regardless of innate ability or interest, are made to move at the same pace through the math curricula. Bright students must wait for low achieving students to catch on or catch up, before being allowed to move into other more advanced topics. In this system, the needs of students at or near the bottom are deemed to be more important than those of the top students in class, and advanced pupils with the most talent are held hostage by the least able and slowest moving ones.

Whereas the blatant unfairness and obvious unworkability of this system is recognized in the realm of reading instruction, where students have long been grouped according to ability in order to better meet the widely varying needs of slower and brighter students alike, the same common sense has not, unfortunately, prevailed in the teaching of mathematics. Championed by the current leaders in math education, including the National Association of Teachers of Mathematics, the doctrine of "Whole Group" instruction and "Math for the Masses" has become a sort of political correctness within the math education community. Dissenting opinions and opposition to this crazy idea are stridently fought back as "repressive" and "old school." One would never dream of forcing an advanced early reader to stunt his or growth in a lower level reading group, yet this is exactly what happens in school as children are taught mathematics.

Although the goals of egalitarianism and equal opportunity are very important, so is accepting the reality that not all people are equally talented or similarly motivated in all things. While inflexible, permanent "tracking" is unfair and definitely not the answer, neither is permanent "anti-tracking" that shackles the best and brightest students to the heels of the slowest and least interested ones.

A recent opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer does a good job of dissecting the issue. Read a reprint of the article here.

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borlandeducational.com

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Are Hard Times Breeding Language Snobbery?

I confess. It does bother me when I encounter grammatical mistakes in advertisements, uttered nonchalantly by media personalities, or written on public signs or forms.

Perhaps that's to be expected ... I am an academic coach, after all.

But are heightened levels of stress and anxiety due to the current world economic crisis making irritated and obnoxious language snobs out of more regular folk?

Obsession with others' language blunders may, in fact, to be on the rise. As personal circumstances fall increasingly beyond our own control, it can be strangely consoling for many to know the "right way" to say or write something and even to browbeat others into adopting correct usage and orthography.

A recent piece at msnbc.com explores this idea more deeply:

But while blunders and bloopers have ever exasperated the spelling snobs and grammar grunions of the world, our recent woes — housing foreclosures, massive layoffs, rising debt and war — may be ratcheting up the pressure some feel to seize control of something (anything!), even if it’s just a properly placed comma.

“Hanging on to some kind of rule might be comforting to people,” says Bethany Keeley, a grad student from Athens, Ga., who runs The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. “People are looking for something they can control and ‘What should we do about our foreign policy?’ is a lot more complicated a question than ‘Should the period go inside or outside the quotation mark?’”

While it's obvious that too much language nagging is too much, I think it's clear that sloppy usage can go too far as well.

In recent years, leaders and role models in government and elsewhere have practically made a career out of mangling language ... and seem almost proud of it, denigrating those who prefer to speak or write with care and skill (See Bushisms and Palinisms).

The moral?

Neither a language snob nor slacker be.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Wikipedia Begins Flagging Revisions

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia anyone can write and edit, one of the top ten sites on the entire internet, the wonderfully useful if not fastidiously veracious repository of aggregate human knowledge, is becoming civilized.

There's a new sheriff in town, and his name is "Flagged Revisions."

Before the new content management system began governing changes, anyone could, in a manner of seconds, edit a Wikipedia article read by the entire world. The possibility of inaccurate or biased revisions has indeed sullied Wikipedia's reputation among academic purists. But with entries that are generally reliable and contain useful links to expand one's knowledge quest quickly and productively, Wikipedia has become the first stop for many amateur researchers and is now the "go to" site for those seeking basic information on topics and questions of general interest. (Following in Wikipedia's footsteps, even the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica has now begun experimenting with user-generated content.)

After malicious revisions to Wikipedia falsely announced the deaths of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, however, Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales called for the swift introduction of Flagged Revisions to prevent such vandalism in the future.

New York Times technology writer Noam Chohen explains:

The new system, called Flagged Revisions, would mark a significant change in the anything-goes, anyone-can-edit-at-any-time ethos of Wikipedia, which in eight years of existence has become one of the top 10 sites on the Web and the de facto information source for the Internet-using public.

The idea in a nutshell is that only registered, reliable users would have the right to have their material immediately appear to the general public visiting Wikipedia. Other contributors would be able to edit articles, but their changes will be held back until one of these reliable users has signed off, or “flagged” the revisions. (Registered, reliable users would see the latest edit to an article, whether flagged or not.)

Click here to read Cohen's entire article.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

10 Ways To Cut College Costs

The cost of college is showing no sign of leveling off, and already causes too many students and parents too many sleepless nights.

Bankrate.com recently offered readers "10 alternate ways to cut college costs" in an online article by Christina Couch.

Tips include getting college credit in high school (fewer college classes means smaller tuition bills), qualifying for free money, transferring from a (low cost) community college, or living in-state for a year to get the best tuition rates.

The article referenced above is an excellent place to start for those interested in cutting the cost of higher education (these days, that's nearly everyone).

Read it here.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Monday, June 01, 2009

No Child Left Behind – Except The Gifted Ones

I admire the liberal, egalitarian goal helping all America's children to achieve academic success. Unfortunately, in our zeal to leave no child behind, we may in fact be leaving the entire nation behind.

With our limited resources, common wisdom now dictates that the special needs of gifted students be sacrificed in order to provide for those of lower achieving kids. Programs and energies previously directed at nurturing the best and brightest in our schools have now all but dried up, blown away by the erratic and often irrational winds of political correctness.

Certainly our culture benefits by raising the floor, but doesn't it also benefit by raising the ceiling? Isn't it just as important to make sure that the next generation's great thinkers, planners, inventors, and creators in all fields be given the educational stimulation and support they need throughout their early academic careers to fully develop their special abilities? Is it not the extraordinary capabilities of these individuals at the far right end of the bell curve – when their exceptional talents are not allowed to atrophy as in our current educational environment – that create many or most of the breakthroughs powering the progress of nations? Do we not still need to rely on the promise of such breakthroughs in fields such as medicine, computer science, energy production, etc. if our country is to continue to remain a world leader?

From a recent Washington Post article by Joann DiGennaro:

The ugly secret is that our most talented students are falling through the cracks. Not one program of such major governmental agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation or NASA specifically targets the top 5 percent of students who have demonstrated academic excellence and have the greatest potential for becoming our inventors, creators and groundbreaking scientists. An international assessment of math problem-solving skills of 15-year-olds in 2004, along with more recent studies, found that the United States had the fewest top performers and the largest percentage of low performers compared with other participating countries. By the time students reach 12th grade in math and science, they are near the bottom or dead last compared with international competition, according to the Education Department. These are the critical years for supporting students in science and math, for it is when they make career-determining decisions for college studies.

The blade must be strong, but the cutting edge must also be sharp in order for a tool to be truly useful. Sacrificing one necessary outcome for the sake of another is a foolish strategy, one that's bound to fail.

We as a nation should be willing (eager, in fact) to invest the resources necessary to accomplish the twin goals of leaving no child behind and holding no genius back.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com