An excerpt from "Khan Academy: Good, Bad, or Ugly?"

Written by Dr. Keith Devlin :

What is without doubt, however, is that millions of people around the world have found Khan's videos valuable aids to help them to pass a crucial math test. Some of them (almost certainly a minority) have, in the process, learned some mathematics -- meaning that, faced with a real world problem whose solution requires the use of math, they will, as a result of watching Khan's videos, be able to use math to solve the problem. (That, of course, is the ultimate goal of mathematics education.)

I would myself have been such a person. Had KA been around when I was at school, I would have loved it. So would Bill Gates, whose public statements and financial support have enabled Khan to build on the initial success of his home-made videos. So, I suspect, would most scientists and engineers. So would many teachers who are critical of KA's pedagogy. (Former Google Education Fellow Dan Meyer, for example.) Almost certainly, the younger Sal himself would have been able to teach himself math using his videos.

For those of us who find ourselves with the ability to learn math, we will do so with whatever tools we can find, and most of us do just fine. For people like us, Sal Khan's videos are a great resource.

Unfortunately, we are a minority, and a school teacher has the responsibility of teaching all children. And there's the rub. For the majority who find mathematics extremely difficult, instructional videos have known problems, and we currently know of no approach that comes close to regular group interactions with a good, inspiring, human teacher. Changing the way a human mind works, which is what teaching amounts to, is a difficult task. Moreover, it involves emotional, psychological, and social factors. It would be impossibly hard, were it nor for the fact that teachers are themselves emotional, psychological, and social creatures, at heart very much like their students. The key is for the teacher and the student to establish human contact.

For the full article, click here.

Women in Science: Einstein's Advice to a Little Girl Who Wants to Be a Scientist

by Maria Popova

On what matters and what doesn’t.

Earlier today, we witnessed the gender imbalance in philosophy — an imbalance arguably more pronounced in science than in any other field. It’s a systemic problem solved not simply by putting more women in the Science section of the bookstore or on the TED stage or on the science faculties of higher education, but by encouraging more little girls to become scientists in the first place. But, how?

From the delightful Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Childrencomes the following exchange between Einstein and a bright, witty South African girl named Tyfanny, who reminded Einstein of his own granddaughter and with whom he exchanged several letters despite being at the height of his career and cultural prominence.

In a letter dated September 19, 1946, Tyfanny writes:

I forgot to tell you, in my last letter, that I was a girl. I mean I am a girl. I have always regretted this a great deal, but by now I have become more or less resigned to the fact. Anyway, I hate dresses and dances and all the kind of rot girls usually like. I much prefer horses and riding. Long ago, before I wanted to become a scientist, I wanted to b e a jockey and ride horses in races. But that was ages ago, now. I hope you will not think any the less of me for being a girl!

Sometime between September and October 1946 — a snappy response time by the day’s standards — Einstein replies:

I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind. There is no reason for it.

Click here for the original post at Brain Pickings.

Math & Olympics: How Fast Could Usain Bolt Run?

At 9.58 seconds, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt holds the world record for the 100 meter sprint. A recent study claims that that time can be improved with  a bit of math and no extra effort on Bolt’s part.

A recent study by John Barrow (University of Cambridge) focuses on Bolt’s reaction time off the starting block and optimum wind speed as factors that would reduce his record time to 9.40 seconds. His findings will be published in Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association.

"The time that people record in the 100 meter sprint is the sum of two parts -- one is the reaction time to the starting gun and the other is the actual running time," said Barrow in an article for Reuters.

Barrow has been giving a series of talks on the mathematics behind the Olympics in the run-up to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Other sports he’s focused on include rowing and the triathlon. Read more from Reuters.


Original Article here.

Understanding uncertainty : A 113% chance of death?

A recent study from Harvard reported that people who ate more red meat died at a greater rate. This provoked some wonderful media coverage: the Daily Express interpreted the study as saying that "if people cut down the amount of red meat they ate — say from steaks and beef burgers — to less than half a serving a day, 10 per cent of all deaths could be avoided". 

Well it would be nice to find something that would avoid 10% of all deaths, but sadly this is not what the study says. Their main conclusion is that an extra portion of red meat a day, where a portion is 85g or 3 oz — a lump of meat around the size of a pack of cards or slightly smaller than a standard quarter-pound burger — is associated with a hazard ratio of 1.13, that is a 13% increased risk of death. But what does this mean? Surely our risk of death is already 100%, and a risk of 113% does not seem very sensible? To really interpret this number we need to use some maths.

Let's consider two friends — Mike and Sam, both aged 40, with the same average weight, alcohol consumption, amount of exercise, family history of disease, but not necessarily exactly the same income, education and standard of living. Meaty Mike eats a quarter-pound burger for lunch Monday to Friday, while Standard Sam does not eat meat for weekday lunches, but otherwise has a similar diet to Mike (we are not concerned here with their friend Veggie Vern, who doesn't eat meat at all.)

Each one faces an annual risk of death, whose technical name is their hazard. A hazard ratio of 1.13 means that for two people like Mike and Sam, who are similar apart from the extra meat, the one with the risk factor — Mike — has a 13% increased annual risk of death over the follow-up period (around 20 years).However, this does not mean that he is going to live 13% less, although this is how some people interpreted this figure. So how does it affect how long they each might live? For this we have to go to the life tables provided by the Office of National Statistics.

For the full article, click here.

A Language Arts-Engineering Mashup

Many cross-content lessons are easy to come by - a paper written for history includes quite a bit of language arts, math word problems include science topics, and health class covers body systems covered in science.  So when Anne Sullivan and Tricia Svendsen wanted to create a cross-content lesson including language arts and engineering, they were surprised by the lack of available lesson plans.  Using Goldilocks and the Three Bears and other works from literature, the women worked to incorporate them into lessons about temperature, texture,  and even chair stability for their 5th grade class.

Sullivan, Anne & Svendsen, Tricia. "A Language Arts-Engineering Mashup." Learning & Leading With Technology June/July 2011: 30-31. Print. 

QR: It's Code for Engaging Students

QR, or "quick response," codes are fast becoming the standard for relaying information via smart-phone.  They can be seen in magazines, on TV, and even used on home "For Sale" signs; the user scans in the black and white image and receives detailed information back immediately.  Karen Fasimpaur discusses the potential benefits of harnessing QR code technology for education and the classroom.


Fasimpaur, Karen. "QR: It's Code for Engaging Students." Learning & Leading With Technology June/July 2011: 28. Print. 

(Try scanning the QR code posted above to see where it takes you!)

Student Voices for Change

With the budget and bottom line a constant worry, students have the potential to be the greatest salesmen when it comes to the benefits of technology in the classroom.  Whether speaking to politicians, school administrations, or even the community at large, students are in a unique position to relate the impact of technology on their learning environment.

McClintock Miller, Shannon. "Student Voices for Change." Learning & Leading With Technology June/July 2011: 20-23. Print. 

One Size Never Fits All

Jennifer Courduff explores the difficulties inherent to integrating technology into the special education classroom. From training and support to viable transition periods, there are enormous hurdles that must be taken into consideration when implementing a special-needs technology curriculum.  California's Etiwanda School District provides several examples of successful integration.

Courduff, Jennifer. "One Size Never Fits All." Learning & Leading With Technology June/July 2011: 16-19. Print.

April is Mathematics Awareness Month

Mathematics Awareness Month is held each year in April. Its goal is to increase public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics.

Each year a national theme is selected by The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM). The 2012 theme is “Mathematics, Statistics, and the Data Deluge.”

According to the official MAM website:

Massive amounts of data are collected every day, often from services we use regularly, but never think about. Scientific data comes in massive amounts from sensor networks, astronomical instruments, biometric devices, etc., and needs to be sorted out and understood. Personal data from our Google searches, our Facebook or Twitter activities, our credit card purchases, our travel habits, and so on, are being mined to provide information and insight. These data sets provide great opportunities, and pose dangers as well.

Theme essays, posters, and related resources are available here.

The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) is a collaborative effort of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Click here for original article.

Basketball project has Atlantic City students taking an active interest in math

By DIANE D’AMICO Education Writer

ATLANTIC CITY — Fifth-grader Drashti Lapsiwala, 10, was on her game, making more than half of her free throws in the New York Avenue School gym.

Azim Coley, 10, sat on the floor, tallying her results and keeping track of how many throws she had left in order to complete 12.

“How do we count by fives?” math coach William Heckman asked, reminding students they can put a slash through their four vertical lines to make a group of five.

Upstairs in a classroom, teacher Jerome Taylor’s seventh-graders had already completed their free throws and were tallying what percentage of throws each student had made, how the girls compared to the boys, and how class fared as a whole.

“I calculated it in fractions, then with a decimal point,” seventh-grader Ayannah Barnes explained.

Fractions and percentages are weak areas among students, math supervisor Ray Allen said. The basketball project is an effort to help students better understand them by applying them to a real-life exercise rather than abstract problems in a book.

To see the full article, click here.