I usually try to fit in references to Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, but have skipped over Noether in the past. I promise not to do so in the future. I'll have to do more research on Hypatia before covering her in class, though. Thank you very much for the tips.
Research and experience seem to demonstrate that practicing concepts and theory in a simple, fun language are much more enticing and approachable than getting thrown into the deep end with OOP from the beginning. Programs that do this well are Scratch, Alice, Scheme, and Context Free/Algorithm art. All have some aspect of drawing, image manipulation, and animation to them, which can be appealing to a first-time programmer. Alice (www.alice.org) and Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) are simple, and can be used from middle school and up. Scheme is somewhat more advanced, and has it's own formal online textbook (www.teach-scheme.org). A colleague is using it right now with his Intro to Programming Course, and students are showing significant progress. Context free is very light Java, and fun (www.contextfreeart.org, and azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink). Having attended seminars for Scheme and Alice, I can tell you that they have terrific support communities backing them up. I'm sure that there are others out there too, but this ought to give you a running start.
Rather than wasting your energy and my time with finger pointing at teachers and teacher unions, I recommend doing research and examining better ways to present math. Here are the approaches that I use in my class:
-Topics in Applied and real-world Math (balancing checkbooks in Excel, realistic and safe investment strategies)
-Advanced Math topics explained in everyday terms and presented in a practical way (game theory).
-Recreational Math (playing with the Fibonacci sequence) and math games.
-Math History and biographies (Pythagoras, Newton, Ramanujan, Hardy, Erdos).
Each of these strategies presents math in a way that shows how one could love it. As I tell students on the first day of the course, there are no promises that they will fall in love with math, but they may be able to glimpse a life where they do not have to hate it.
Math is unlike many other subjects in that one failure may cause a lifelong disbelief in one's mathematical skills. But it doesn't always have to be that way. It took me a long time to learn what a joy this discipline can be. A majority of the math teachers I know feel the same way.
Education does not scale up well. It has nothing to do with union conspiracies. Simply look at how ineffective mass-produced education was in the 1800's. It is simply the way it has always been. Innovators such as John Dewey have tried to change the traditions that have been around since ancient times, but improvements have always been small and slow to be accepted. What can one do? Try something positive. Your points are moot, and your energy can be used much better than in complaints. Help make improvements - how could it hurt?
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I usually try to fit in references to Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, but have skipped over Noether in the past. I promise not to do so in the future. I'll have to do more research on Hypatia before covering her in class, though. Thank you very much for the tips.
Research and experience seem to demonstrate that practicing concepts and theory in a simple, fun language are much more enticing and approachable than getting thrown into the deep end with OOP from the beginning. Programs that do this well are Scratch, Alice, Scheme, and Context Free/Algorithm art. All have some aspect of drawing, image manipulation, and animation to them, which can be appealing to a first-time programmer. Alice (www.alice.org) and Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) are simple, and can be used from middle school and up. Scheme is somewhat more advanced, and has it's own formal online textbook (www.teach-scheme.org). A colleague is using it right now with his Intro to Programming Course, and students are showing significant progress. Context free is very light Java, and fun (www.contextfreeart.org, and azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink). Having attended seminars for Scheme and Alice, I can tell you that they have terrific support communities backing them up. I'm sure that there are others out there too, but this ought to give you a running start.
Rather than wasting your energy and my time with finger pointing at teachers and teacher unions, I recommend doing research and examining better ways to present math. Here are the approaches that I use in my class: -Topics in Applied and real-world Math (balancing checkbooks in Excel, realistic and safe investment strategies) -Advanced Math topics explained in everyday terms and presented in a practical way (game theory). -Recreational Math (playing with the Fibonacci sequence) and math games. -Math History and biographies (Pythagoras, Newton, Ramanujan, Hardy, Erdos). Each of these strategies presents math in a way that shows how one could love it. As I tell students on the first day of the course, there are no promises that they will fall in love with math, but they may be able to glimpse a life where they do not have to hate it. Math is unlike many other subjects in that one failure may cause a lifelong disbelief in one's mathematical skills. But it doesn't always have to be that way. It took me a long time to learn what a joy this discipline can be. A majority of the math teachers I know feel the same way. Education does not scale up well. It has nothing to do with union conspiracies. Simply look at how ineffective mass-produced education was in the 1800's. It is simply the way it has always been. Innovators such as John Dewey have tried to change the traditions that have been around since ancient times, but improvements have always been small and slow to be accepted. What can one do? Try something positive. Your points are moot, and your energy can be used much better than in complaints. Help make improvements - how could it hurt?
Is this like the lifeboats being lowered?
I'm no virologist, but could this have implications for AIDS research?