Scholar's Bowl

The trivia questions I've been posting have been from an academic competition called Scholars' Bowl. Teams of 4-6 compete against each other in a three-round format.

Round one (10 minutes) has toss-up questions. The question is read and a player from either team can buzz-in and answer the question (hence "toss-up"). The questions will often have three to four sentences, the first being an obscure clue and the rest giving progressively more information. A good player will recognize the answer from the first sentence but has to weigh the 10 points for a correct answer against his uncertainty and the 5 point penalty for guessing early and incorrectly. A correct answer wins 10 points and first shot at 3 bonus questions. That's a fun part of the competition - do I guess early and risk the penalty, or wait and maybe I'm wrong but no penalty? What if the other team buzzes first? Typically, this round ends with scores of 50 to 60 or so.

Round Two is the lightning round. The trailing team gets one minute for 10 quick-answer questions, 5 points per. Any that they "pass" or answer incorrectly are then asked of the other team. Answer all ten and get 10 extra points. (total 60). Then team two has ten questions and any they miss are asked of team one. The scores are usually pretty close after the second round and usually close to 100 each.

Round Three is all toss-up questions, no bonuses. This round is fast and the points come quickly. A good reader can make or break a competition - read deliberately and the teams are antsy and jumping at straws. Read quickly and clearly and the teams settle into that zone you hear about. Very fun.

If you can get your school to sponsor a team, it's worth it.

This book is a good place to start your classes off:
Campbell's Potpourri III of Quiz Bowl Questions

Trivia - Sunday 12th

An easy one this time, for the musically inclined.

What somewhat famous song, set to the tune of an old English drinking song, was written by a prisoner on a British warship near Fort McHenry during the War of 1812?

BONUS:
(a) Name the prisoner.
(b) What are the last seven words of the song?
(c) According to the joke, what are the two words after that?


Answers from Saturday:
fertilizing
Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium
N P K

Saturday Trivia - July 11

Trivia Question:
What is the modern name for the practice suggested in this passage from the first century A.D.? "The earth neither grows old nor wears out if it be dunged."

BONUS: What are the three primary elements in this product?

DOUBLE BONUS: What are the chemical symbols of these elements?



Answers from Friday 10th:
Silmarillion : JRR TOLKIEN
Stranger in a Strange Land : ROBERT HEINLEIN
Dune : FRANK HERBERT
Narnia Chronicles : C.S. LEWIS
Jurassic Park : MICHEAL CRICHTON
A Spell for Chameleon : PIERS ANTHONY
Foundation Trilogy : ISAAC ASIMOV
Ender’s War : ORSON SCOTT CARD
2001: Space Odyssey : ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Midnight at the Well of Souls : JACK CHALKER

Friday Trivia - July 10

We'll wrap up the week with the last of the Bookshelf "Lightning Round" - these are even more out there - really out there. To Space and the SciFi Section.

Give yourself 30 seconds - can you identify the author of each of these works?

My bookshelf, PART III: Given the title, tell the author.
Silmarillion
Stranger in a Strange Land
Dune
Narnia Chronicles
Jurassic Park
A Spell for Chameleon
Foundation Trilogy
Ender’s War
2001: Space Odyssey
Midnight at the Well of Souls



Answers from Thursday:
My Name is Asher Lev : CHAIM POTOK
Being There : JERZY KOSINSKI
Patriot Games : TOM CLANCY
The Client : JOHN GRISHAM
Flight of the Intruder : STEPHEN COONTS
It : STEPHEN KING
A Brief History of Time : STEPHEN HAWKING
Deliverance : JAMES DICKEY
Raise the Titanic : CLIVE CUSSLER
The Guns of Navarone : ALASTAIR MACLEAN

Thursday Trivia - July 9

Thursday is another "Lightning Round" - but these are harder.
Give yourself 30 seconds - can you identify the author of each of these works?

My bookshelf, PART II: Given the title, tell the author.

1. My Name is Asher Lev
2. Being There
3. Patriot Games
4. The Client
5. Flight of the Intruder
6. It
7. A Brief History of Time
8. Deliverance
9. Raise the Titanic
10. The Guns of Navarone

Answer from Wednesday
The Prince and The Pauper : Mark Twain, or Sam Clemens
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof : Tennessee Williams
Franny and Zooey : J.D. Salinger
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead : Tom Stoppard
The Sea-Wolf and Other Stories : Jack London
Homage to Catalonia : George Orwell
Cyrano de Bergerac : Edmund Rostand
A Farewell to Arms : Ernest Hemingway
Wind in the Willows : Ken Grahame
The Stranger : Albert Camus

Discipline in a Nutshell

From Andrew
Rules which are not enforced are often far more harmful than no rules at all and a chain of command which breaks is worse than no chain of command at all.

A silly little ratio problem for you

I was wandering around the SmartBoard website and I came across this little bit of information:

Model  Active screen area
690  94" (238.8 cm), 16:9 aspect ratio
685  87" (221.0 cm), 16:10 aspect ratio

If that 94" is the diagonal of the active area, what are the dimensions of the whole board? Let's assume it's 3" from the active area to the actual edge of the equipment on the left, top and right and 6" at the bottom (to include the "chalk tray").

How about for the 87"?

Whew! World is still here.

Holding your breath? We're okay. We made it.
12:34:56 7/8/9
has passed and there aren't any floods, disasters, or religious raptures. Maybe I just read the tea leaves wrong. 2012 anyone?

Longitudinal Data Collection

From eSchoolNews:

President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have emphasized the need for all states to implement longitudinal data systems to track the progress of students from kindergarten through college and the workforce. Those data systems also would link students to their respective teachers and help school leaders identify strengths and weaknesses within their districts.

I like this idea in theory, but it is rife with dangers to the teacher, school and student. I have no faith in the goodwill intentions of those who are proposing this nor in those who will implement it. It feels like some think tank took a decent idea and extrapolated too far. I don't think they're thought this one through.

Considering teachers, I am focusing on "link students to their respective teachers and help school leaders identify strengths and weaknesses"

1. What of the teacher who is assigned the weaker kids in the first place because he is the better teacher - is my teaching them multiplication as value-added as your teaching them polynomial factorization?
2. What if the weakness is administrative? One of my peeves is the guidance counselor who can't decide if the "consumer math" class is for seniors who have completed algebra 2 / pre-calculus or for the kid who can't pass algebra 1 -- and they're both in the same class. How do we account for this?
3. How do we measure the teacher who is primarily pre-calculus / calculus and whose students are primarily seniors - they're past the test, having passed the test? Is this person a weakness?
4. What of the teacher whose material isn't yet tested? History, Art, Music, Languages, IEP/504
5. Just for laughs, what of the kid whose parent has overruled his teacher's placement recommendations? Whose fault is it that he's struggling and not learning as much as he might?
6. I don't know about you-all, but some kids up here change teachers during their high school career. I don't want to be saddled with the test results for a kid who's been in my math class for 1 month, especially if he's transferred out of Mr. Loser's class into mine specifically because he wanted a better teacher.

For the student, I have concerns about the security of the data and the inputs:

1. How long will it be before we have the kid's entire life on one database and schools start selling adspace and selling the database to marketers. It's already happening with iGoogle and student editions of Google Mail. How long before someone sells access to the better math students? or the better writers? There are ways to serve the ads that wouldn't violate FERPA. This is not a good thing.
2. The schools are notoriously bad at security now - how can they possibly hope to keep all this correct? Think of the story last week of the mother who changed grades to promote her daughter's standing - do you want to trust that same woman and the thousands like her to be perfect? If the data is internal, the damage is limited to transcripts and such - easily caught because it's local. If the correction takes a while, then the damage is likewise local. Can you imagine the State catching those errors? The State can't even figure out how many kids attend a school or what the graduation rate is. They have to depend on fallible humans. Garbage in, garbage out.
3. Credit card companies and banks get hacked. Do we really think that Mrs. Smith in the main office is similarly motivated, trained and able to keep things secure? You know her, she's the one with the post-it note passwords?
4. Have your ever tried to correct your address at school? You walk in, say "Hi" and tell them the new address. How about doing that at the state level? What of the kid who changes his name midstream. Or changes schools, or changes religions and adopts a new name? Or goes to live with the other parent in a different district? state?

Schools:

What of the records from private schools or charter schools or homeschools - is this just another way to smack down the public schools while promoting schools that can't be measured but are assumed to be good "just because they're parochial and everyone knows they're good"?

Other thoughts:

They want to also include college - how? The kid is over 18, is paying for college, and even his own parents can't see his records if he doesn't give consent.

Don't even get me started on tracking a student up to, into and through the workforce. Creepy and over-reaching are the nicest terms I can think of. Certainly, it's the only one I should use publicly.

Let's end with this:

One big-ass system to track students. How's that working out for you, NYC?

Before I dump everything into this happy little database - can we please make sure it works?

Trivia - Wednesday Lightning Round

Wednesday's Question is a "Lightning Round"
Give yourself 30 seconds - can you identify the author of each of these works? Highlight the text after "Answer:" for the answers!

My bookshelf, PART I: Given the title, tell the author.

The Prince and The Pauper
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Franny and Zooey
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The Sea-Wolf and Other Stories
Homage to Catalonia
Cyrano de Bergerac
A Farewell to Arms
Wind in the Willows
The Stranger

Answer from Tuesday:
Sammy Davis Jr. sang the theme song to Baretta, "Keep Your Eye on The Sparrow." Nobody knows what that means. Nobody cares cause it's Sammy and he was a great singer.

Trivia

In another post, I referred to Baretta's theme song. "Don't do the Crime if you can't do the Time, Don't do it".

QotDay:
Who sings the theme song to Baretta?

Answer in next day's question.

Punishments, Fines and Penalties

From this Yahoo article by Chris Chase comes news that penalties for lateness in the real world do exist. I may keep this one for when kids complain that they were "just going to the bathroom and couldn't make it to class on time" or "their car wouldn't start" or "my sister was late."

"Lance Armstrong and his Astana team were fined for arriving late for the pre-stage registration this morning in Marseille, France. Rules state that riders must show up 20 minutes prior to the start or face a fine of 100 Swiss Francs ($92)."

Of course, the French authorities were not amused:

"They don't care about the fine. We are going to ask the UCI to be tougher."

Which brings up an interesting point for educators. Set your penalty for the 'offense' and stick to it. The temptation is to raise the stakes for repeat offenders leading to the school suspending or expelling for chronic tardiness. This escalation rarely works to your benefit. Instead, keep the punishment wherever it is. The rulebook is your friend.

High Schoolers are in the middle of feeling their way through the transition from "letter-of-the-law" mentality to "deeper meaning of the law" mentality. Anyone who has tried to write or enforce a dress code knows what I'm talking about here!

If the rule and its response aren't specified, the lesson won't be internalized. If the rule isn't followed all the time, don't expect to have an easy time of it on those rare occasions when you try. These kids are not quite ready to understand relativity and fine lines and shades of gray. They want "Yes" or "No", "Breaking the Rule" or not, "I was inside the door when the Bell rang."

Also, don't get all hung up over the enforcement of that clearly-defined rule and response. The kids get the quid pro quo if they know that you are not singling them out. They might not like the punishment, but they'll understand it. Better to say "You knew what was going to happen, don't complain" or sing the theme tune to Baretta.

Whatever you do, don't drop the punishment. If your school says 1 detention for 3 tardies, it shouldn't suddenly try to mitigate that with "restorative justice" or some other touchy-feely garbage just because Johnny has racked up 15 detentions. The adults will feel better but the Johnny won't get much except "I got away with it." Figure out a way for him to "pay off" those 15 detentions - maybe a work crew assignment on Saturday that happens to be equivalent. If you can't find an equivalent then maybe your penalties should be changed -- at the end of the year.

If the school seems to be ignoring your problem student (as mine does) then the "Mad Minute Quiz" is a fine solution. Have them add fractions or solve simple equations for 60 seconds, no retakes allowed. Anyone on the absence list is exempt.

Don't over-react, either. This is not the time to start talking about "three strikes" or suspension or expulsion. If the kid escalates, then you can rise up with him. His screaming and shouting raises the stakes and is a new situation. His loss of control is a new problem and should be treated just like any other episode of screaming and shouting. Just don't try to make that kid understand that THIS time his five-minute tardiness is somehow more important that the last one and deserves more punishment. He won't understand and you'll get nowhere, mostly because this tardy IS NO different.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh:

"One of the excuses floated for that late arrival for Astana was that there was bad traffic in Marseille. The irony of showing up late to a bike race because your car was stuck in traffic is something even Pescheux should find amusing."

There's Brains for You

More Verbal Diarrhea from Arne Duncan:

"Kids are on their cell phones the 14 hours a day they are not in school," Duncan said in a recent interview with eCampus News at Education Department (ED) headquarters in Washington, D.C. With teenagers and young adults using cell phones constantly, Duncan said, technology officials should find ways to send homework, video lectures, and other classroom material so students can study wherever they are.

Does it really make sense that the kids will study during those 14 hours of the day that they're not in school if they couldn't be bothered to study during the 6.5 hours they were in it?

I always come back to this question: If students were so good at studying outside of school such as during the summer, why don't they come back to school better? Why is there such a drop-off during the 10 weeks of summer? The Internet and Wikipedia and all those free online courses and thousands of free websites (like my real one, not this one) that articulate pretty much everything that happens in class, are all available during the summer. Judging from the logs, though, it's not used all that much.

Could it be that students don't learn very much outside of the classroom, that the cellphones are used for chatting and sexting rather than for education?

I wonder, too, if you make everything available outside of the classroom, what incentive is there to be in class and paying attention? "I don't need to write this down, I can get it from the website." "I don't need notes because you'll write them for me." which then leads to "I don't understand this question on the test because I didn't understand your notes." Not surprising, since you didn't actually read them, you just skimmed them and made some very broad assumptions about your understanding.