BBC News - How tall can a Lego tower get?
There's a good math unit in here somewhere. What could you use it for?
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
LEGO Towers
Friday, November 30, 2012
CMC North Conference at Asilomar
I'm at one of my favorite annual conferences in Monterey, CA at the Asilomar conference grounds. If you can't make it then stay tuned to this blog or to my twitter feed (@doctor2pi) for live updates on the workshops I'll be attending, starting with today's presentation by Dan Meyer.
Kelvin Doe and the Art of Teaching
I was baffled a couple of weeks ago when I read about a group of illiterate Ethiopian children who learned to sing ABC's in English and hack a Xoom tablet just weeks after a crate full of them were delivered to their village by the OLPC. This isn't the only story, however, of children in third world countries that are learning despite living in impoverished conditions without the help of a teacher.
One story I round recently is of a young man from Sierra Leone who created his own FM radio station from spare parts he found in the local scrap heaps.
The thing that strikes me about these stories is that these children are for more destitute than students that I teach in my socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood high school and yet true learning is taking place.
I think these stories show (much to the chagrin of many colleagues who blame poor student performance on their family's income) that children in low-income (or no income) situations can, and do, learn.
These children are driven by curiosity and a desire to learn to help improve their way of life. Think about Kelvin Doe for a moment. If he were an American teenager, he would be in a class of 40 students most likely receiving direct instruction (not that it's a bad thing...just not all the time) about everything BUT how to create his own FM station. I know (and so does Kelvin and MIT) that he needs direct instruction, but he got to that point on his own after hitting the wall and realizing that he couldn't do much more without the help of an expert.
This is how our students should learn and this is the part we should play. We need help them create the cognitive dissonance that has them begging for the help they need to finish their own projects and satisfy their own inquiries. I'm not saying that I know how to do that all of the time, but I'm working on it.
One story I round recently is of a young man from Sierra Leone who created his own FM radio station from spare parts he found in the local scrap heaps.
The thing that strikes me about these stories is that these children are for more destitute than students that I teach in my socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood high school and yet true learning is taking place.
I think these stories show (much to the chagrin of many colleagues who blame poor student performance on their family's income) that children in low-income (or no income) situations can, and do, learn.
These children are driven by curiosity and a desire to learn to help improve their way of life. Think about Kelvin Doe for a moment. If he were an American teenager, he would be in a class of 40 students most likely receiving direct instruction (not that it's a bad thing...just not all the time) about everything BUT how to create his own FM station. I know (and so does Kelvin and MIT) that he needs direct instruction, but he got to that point on his own after hitting the wall and realizing that he couldn't do much more without the help of an expert.
This is how our students should learn and this is the part we should play. We need help them create the cognitive dissonance that has them begging for the help they need to finish their own projects and satisfy their own inquiries. I'm not saying that I know how to do that all of the time, but I'm working on it.
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